JUSTICE SATISFIED – Charles Spurgeon
Justice Satisfied
Introduction: The Problem of Guilt
“Just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus.” Romans 3:26.
“Just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.
When the soul is seriously impressed with the conviction of its guilt, when terror and alarm get hold upon it concerning the inevitable consequences of its sin, the soul is afraid of God. It dreads at that time every attribute of divinity. But most of all, the sinner is afraid of God’s justice. “Ah,” he says to himself, “God is a just God. And if so, how can He pardon my sins? My iniquities cry aloud for punishment and my transgressions demand that His right hand should smite me low. How can I be saved? Were God unjust, He might forgive—but, alas, He is not so—He is severely just. ‘He lays justice to the line and righteousness to the plummet.’ He is the judge of all the earth and He must do right. How, then, can I escape from His righteous wrath which must be stirred up against me?”
The Reality of Divine Justice
Let us be assured that the sinner is quite right in the conviction that there is a great difficulty here! The justice of God is in itself a great barrier to the salvation of sinners. There is no possibility for that barrier to be surmounted, nor even for it to be removed except by one means, which shall this day be proclaimed unto you through the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord! It is true that God is just. Let old Sodom tell you how God rained fire and brimstone out of heaven upon man’s iniquity! Let a drowning world tell you how God lifted the sluices of the fountains of the great deep and bade the bubbling waters spring up and swallow man alive! Let the earth tell you how she opened her mouth when Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against God! Let the buried cities of Nineveh and the tattered relics of Tyre and Sidon tell you that God is just and will by no means spare the guilty! And direst of all, let hell’s bottomless pit declare what is the awful vengeance of God against the sins of man—let the sighs and groans and moans and shrieks of spirits condemned of God rise in your ears and bear witness that He is a God who will not spare the guilty, who will not wink at iniquity, transgression, and sin—but who will have vengeance upon every rebel and will give justice its full satisfaction for every offense!
The Difficulty of Salvation
The sinner is right in his conviction that God is just and he is moreover right in the inference which follows from it, that because God is just, his sin must be punished. Ah, sinner, if God punishes not your sins, He has ceased to be what He has always been—the severely just, the inflexibly righteous! Never has there been a sin pardoned, absolutely and without atonement, since the world began. There has never been an offense yet remitted by the great judge of heaven. Until the law of God has received the fullest vindication, you are right, O convicted sinner, that such shall be the case even to the end. Every transgression shall have its just recompense of reward. For every offense, there shall be its stroke and for every iniquity, there shall be its doom.
The Barrier of Justice: A Necessary Punishment
“Ah,” says the sinner, “then I am shut out of heaven! If God is just and He must punish sin, then what can I do? Justice, like some dark angel, strides across the road of mercy and with his sword drawn, thirsty for blood and winged to slay; he strides across my path and threatens to drive me backward over the precipice of death into the ever-burning lake.”
Sinner, you are right. It is even so. Except through the gospel, which I am about to preach to you, justice is your antagonist, your lawful, irresistible, and insatiable enemy! It cannot suffer you to enter heaven, for you have sinned; and punished that sin must be, avenged that transgression must be as long as God is God—the holy and the just!
The Great Riddle of the Gospel: Justice Satisfied
Is it possible, then, that the sinner can be saved? This is the great riddle of the law and the grand discovery of the gospel. Wonder, you heavens! Be astonished, O earth! That very justice, which stood in the sinner’s way and prevented his being pardoned, has been, by the gospel of Christ, appeased! By the rich atonement offered upon Calvary, Justice is satisfied, has sheathed its sword and has now not a word to say against the pardon of the penitent! No, more—that Justice, once so angry, whose brow was lightning and whose voice was thunder, has now become the sinner’s advocate and itself, with its mighty voice, pleads with God that whoever confesses his sin should be pardoned and be cleansed from all unrighteousness!
The Role of Justice in the Sinner’s Pardon
The business of this morning shall be to show, in the first place, according to the first text, how justice is no longer the sinner’s enemy—“God is just and yet the justifier of him who believes.” And then, in the second place, that justice has become the sinner’s advocate, and that, “God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But, here, let me utter a caution. I shall speak this morning only to those who feel their guilt and who are ready to confess their sin. For to those who still love sin and will not acknowledge their guilt, there is no promise of mercy or pardon! For those, there remains nothing but the fearful looking for of judgment. “He that being often reproved hardens his heart shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy.” The soul that neglects this great salvation cannot escape! There is no door of escape provided for it. Unless the Lord has now brought us to feel our need of mercy; has compelled us to confess that unless He gives us mercy, we must righteously perish, and unless, moreover, He has made us now willing to be saved on any terms, so that we may be saved at all, this gospel which I am about to preach is not ours. But, if we are convicted of sin and are now trembling before the thunders of God’s wrath, every word that I am now about to speak will be full of encouragement and consolation to you!
I. How Justice Was Satisfied
First, then, HOW HAS JUSTICE BEEN PUT ASIDE? Or rather, HOW HAS IT BEEN SO SATISFIED THAT IT NO LONGER STANDS IN THE WAY OF GOD’S JUSTIFYING THE SINNER? The one answer to that is Justice has been satisfied through the substitution of our blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When man sinned, the law demanded that man must be punished. The first offense of man was committed by Adam, who was the representative of the entire race. When God would punish sin, in His own infinite mind, He thought of the blessed expedient, not of punishing His people, but of punishing their representative, the covenant head, the second Adam. It was by one man, the first man that sin entered into the world and death by sin. It was by another man, the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven—it was by Him that this sin was borne—by Him its punishment was endured. By Him, the whole wrath was tolerated. And through that second representative of manhood, Jesus, the second Adam, God is now able and willing to forgive the vilest of the vile and justify even the ungodly—and He is able to do so without the slightest violation of His justice. For, mark, when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, suffered on the tree, He did not suffer for Himself—He had no sin, either natural or actual—He had done nothing whatever that could bring Him under the ban of heaven, or subject His holy soul and His perfect body to grief and pain. When He suffered, it was as a substitute. He died—“The just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”
The Dignity of Christ’s Sacrifice
Had His sorrows been personally deserved, they would have had no efficacy in them, but inasmuch as for sins not His own He died to atone—inasmuch as He was punished, not for any guilt that He had done or could do—but for the guilt incurred by others, there was a merit and an efficacy in all that He suffered, by which the law was satisfied and God is able to forgive!
The Dignity of the Victim
Note first the dignity of the victim who offered Himself up to divine justice. Man had sinned. The law required the punishment of manhood. But Jesus, the eternal Son of God, “very God of very God,” who had been hymned through eternal ages by joyous angels—who had been the favorite of His Father’s court, exalted high above principalities and powers and every name that is named—He Himself condescended to become man! He was born of the Virgin Mary. He was cradled in a manger. He lived a life of suffering and at last died a death of agony. If you will but think of the wondrous person whom Jesus was—as very God of very God, king of angels, creator, preserver, Lord of all—I think you will see that in His sufferings, the law received a greater vindication than it could have done even in the sufferings of all the men who have ever lived or ever could live!The Relationship Between Christ and God
In the next place, just pause and think of the relationship which Jesus Christ had towards the great judge of all the earth and then you will see again that the law must have been fully satisfied. We hear of Brutus, that he was the most inflexible of lawgivers; that when he sat upon the bench he knew no distinction of persons. Imagine dragged before Brutus many of the noblest Roman senators, convicted of crime—he condemns them—and without mercy, they are taken away by the lectors to their doom! You would certainly admire all this justice of Brutus. But suppose Brutus’ own son was brought before him—and such was the case—imagine the father sitting on the judgment bench and declaring that he knew no distinction whatever, even of his own children.
Imagine that son tried and condemned out of his father’s own mouth! See him tied up before his father’s own eyes, while, as the inflexible judge, he bids the lector lay on the rod and afterwards cries, “Take him away and use the axe!” Do you not see here how he loves his country more than his own son and he loves justice better than either? “Now,” says the world, “Brutus is just, indeed.” Now, if God had condemned each of us, one by one, or the whole race at once, that would certainly have been a vindication of His justice. But lo, His own Son takes upon Him the sins of the world and He comes before His Father’s presence. He is not guilty in Himself, but the sins of man are laid upon His shoulders. The Father condemns His Son. He gives Him up to the Roman rod. He gives Him up to Jewish mockery, to military scorn, and to priestly arrogance. He delivers up His Son to the executioner and bids him nail Him to the tree. And, as if that were not enough, since the creature had not power of itself to give forth all the vengeance of God upon its own substitute, God Himself smites His Son!
The Price of Redemption
Are you staggered at such an expression? It is Scriptural. Read in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, and there you have the proof—“It pleased the Lord to bruise Him—He has put Him to grief.” When the whip had gone round to every hand; when the betrayer had smitten him; when Pilate and Herod and Jew and Gentile had each laid on the stroke, it was seen that human arm was not powerful enough to execute the full vengeance—then did the Father take His sword and cry, “Awake! O sword, against My shepherd, against the man that is My fellow,” and He smote Him sternly, as if He had been His enemy, as if He were a common culprit, as if He were the worst of criminals—He smote Him again and again till that awful shriek was forced from the lips of the dying substitute, “Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabacthani”—“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Surely when God smites His Son and such a Son—when God smites His only-begotten and well-beloved Son—then justice has more than its due, more than itself could ask! Christ Himself did freely give!
Christ’s Death and the Sinner’s Salvation
- The Agonies of Christ
Furthermore, if you will please, for a moment, consider how terrible were the agonies of Christ, which, mark you, He endured in the place of all poor penitent sinners, of all those who confess their sins and believe in Him. I say, when you mark these agonies, you will readily see why Justice does not stand in the sinner’s way. Does Justice come to you this morning and say, “Sinner, you have sinned; I will punish you”? Answer thus—“Justice, you have punished all my sins. All I ought to have suffered has been suffered by my substitute, Jesus. It is true that in myself I owe you a debt greater than I can pay, but it is also true that in Christ I owe you nothing, for all I did owe is paid, every farthing of it. The utmost drachma has been counted down; not a dolt remains that is due from me to you, O you avenging justice of God.”
The Final Assurance of Justice Satisfied
But, if Justice still accuses, and conscience clamors, go and take Justice with you to Gethsemane, and stand there with it. See that man so oppressed with grief, that all His head, His hair, His garments are bloody? Sin was a press—a vice which forced His blood from every vein and wrapped Him in a sheet of His own blood! Do you see that man there? Can you hear His groans, His cries, His earnest intercessions—can you see His tears? Can you mark that clotted sweat as it crimsons the frozen soil, strong enough to unloose the curse? Do you see Him in the desperate agony of His spirit, crushed, broken, bruised beneath the feet of Justice in the olive press of God? Justice, is not that enough? Will not that content you? In a whole hell there is not so much dignity of vengeance as there is in the garden of Gethsemane!
Justice Satisfied in Christ’s Death
Are you not yet satisfied? Come, Justice, to the Hall of Pilate. Do you see that man arraigned, accused, charged with sedition and with blasphemy? Do you see Him taken to the guard room, spat upon, buffeted with hands, crowned with thorns, robed in mockery, and insulted with a reed for a scepter? I say, Justice, look at that man and do you know that He is “God over all, blessed forever,” and yet He endures all this to satisfy your demands? Are you not content with that? Do you still frown? Let me show you this man on the pavement. He is stripped. Stand, Justice, and listen to those stripes, those bloody scourges—and as they fall upon His devoted back, and plow deep furrows there; do you see thong-full after thong-full of His quivering flesh torn from His poor bare back? Are you not content yet, Justice? Then, what will satisfy you? “Nothing,” says Justice, “but His death.”
Christ’s Final Sacrifice
Come with me, then, so you can see that feeble man hurried through the streets! Do you see Him driven to the top of Calvary, hurled on His back, nailed to the transverse wood? Oh, Justice, can you see His dislocated bones now that His cross is lifted up? Stand with me, O Justice! Do you see Him as He weeps and sighs and cries— see His soul-agonies? Can you read that tale of terror which is veiled in that flesh and blood? Come, listen, Justice, while you hear Him cry, “I thirst,” and while you see the burning fever devouring Him till He is dried up like a potsherd, and His tongue cleaves to the roof of His mouth for thirst! And lastly, O Justice, do you see Him bow His head and die?
The Satisfaction of Justice and the Believer’s Hope
“Yes,” says Justice, “and I am satisfied. I have nothing more that I can ask. I am fully content. My uttermost demands are more than satisfied.” And, am I not content, too? Guilty though I am, and vile, can I not plead that this bloody sacrifice is enough to satisfy God’s demands against me? Oh, yes, I trust I can— “My faith does lay its hand On that dear head of Yours While like a penitent I stand And here confess my sin.” Jesus, I believe that Your sufferings were for me. And I believe that they are more than enough to satisfy all my sins. By faith, I cast myself at the foot of Your cross and cling to it. This is my only hope, my shelter and my shield. It cannot be that God can smite me now—Justice itself prevents, for when Justice once is satisfied, it were injustice if it should ask for more!
Conclusion: Justice Satisfied and Pardon Granted
Now, is it not clear enough to the eyes of everyone whose soul has been awakened, that justice stands no longer in the way of the sinner’s pardon? God can be just and yet the justifier! He has punished Christ—why should He punish twice for one offense? Christ has died for all His people’s sins and if you are in the covenant, you are one of Christ’s people! You cannot be damned! For your sins you cannot suffer! Until God can be unjust and demand two payments for one debt, He cannot destroy the soul for whom Jesus died! “Away goes universal redemption,” says one. Yes, away it goes, indeed! I am sure there is nothing about that in the Word of God. A redemption that does not redeem is not worth my preaching, or your hearing! Christ redeemed every soul that is saved—no more and no less—every spirit that shall be seen in heaven, Christ bought! If he had redeemed those in hell, they never would have gone there. He has bought His people with His blood, and they, alone, shall He bring with Him. “But who are they?” one asks. You are one if you believe! You are one if you repent of your sin! If you will now take Christ to be your all-in-all, then you are one of His! The covenant would be a lie, and God would be unjust, and justice would become unrighteousness, and love would become cruelty, and the cross would become a fiction before you can be condemned if you trust in Jesus!
This is the way in which Justice ceases to be the enemy of souls.
III. The Duties of Faith and Confession
The second text says that not only can God be just, but it says something more—it says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Now, if I understand this text, it means this—that IT IS AN ACT OF JUSTICE ON GOD’S PART TO FORGIVE THE SINNER WHO MAKES A CONFESSION OF HIS SIN TO GOD. Mark—not that the sinner deserves forgiveness—that can never be! Sin can never merit anything but punishment, and repentance is no atonement for sin. Not that God is bound from any necessity of His nature to forgive everyone who repents, because repentance has not in itself sufficient efficacy and power to merit forgiveness at the hands of God. Yet, nevertheless, it is a truth of God that, because God is just, He must forgive every sinner who confesses his sin. And if He did not—and mark, it is a bold thing to say, but it is warranted by the text—if a sinner should be led truly and solemnly to make confession of his sins and cast himself on Christ, if God did not forgive him, then, He were not the God that He is represented to be in the Word of God! Then He would be an unjust God and that, God forbid, must not, cannot be!
But how, then, is it that Justice itself actually demands that every soul that repents should be pardoned? It is so. The same Justice that just now stood with a fiery sword in his hand, like the cherubim of old guarding the way of the tree of life, now goes hand in hand with the sinner. “Sinner,” he says, “I will go with you. When you go to plead for pardon, I will go and plead for you. Once I spoke against you, but now I am so satisfied with what Christ has done that I will go with you and plead for you! I will change my language. I will not say a word to oppose your pardon, but I will go with you and demand it! It is but an act of justice that God should now forgive.” And the sinner goes up with Justice and what has Justice got to say? Why, it says this—“God must forgive the repenting sinner, if He is just, according to His promise.”
God’s Promise of Forgiveness
A God who could break His promise were unjust. We do not believe in men who tell us lies. I have known some of so gentle a disposition that they could never say, “No.” If they were asked to do a thing they have said, “Yes.” But they have never earned a character for it, when they have said, “Yes,” and afterwards did not follow through! It is not so with God. He is no tender-hearted being who promises more than He can perform, and no forgetful one who promises what afterwards shall slip from His memory. Every word which God utters shall be fulfilled, whether it is decree, threat, or promise! Sinner, go to God with a promise in your hand—“Lord, You have said, ‘He who confesses his sin and forsakes it, shall find mercy.’ I confess my sin and I forsake it—Lord, give me mercy!” Don’t doubt but that God will give it to you. You have His own pledge in your hands; you have His own bond in your keeping. Take that pledge and that bond before His throne of mercy, and that bond never shall be cancelled till it has been honored! You shall see that promise fulfilled to the uttermost, though your sin is ever so black.
Conclusion: The Assurance of Forgiveness
Suppose the promise you take should be this—“He who comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.” “But,” says the Law, “you are one of the greatest sinners that ever lived.” “Yes, but the promise says, ‘He who comes,’ and I come and I claim the fulfillment of it.” “No, but you have been a blasphemer!” “I know it, but the promise says, ‘He who comes,’ and I come and blasphemer though I am, I claim the promise.” “But you have been a thief; you have deceived your neighbor, and you have robbed men.” “I have, but the promise says, ‘He who comes to Me I will in no wise cast out.’ I come and I claim the promise! It does not say anything at all about character in the promise—it says, ‘He who comes,’ and I come! And if I am black as the devil, nevertheless God is true, and I claim the promise. I confess all that can be said against me. Will God be untrue and send a seeking soul away with a promise unfulfilled? Never!”
“Ah, but it never can be said of Almighty God that if a sinner acted on the faith of His promise then that promise was not kept. God ceases to be God when he ceases to have mercy upon the soul who seeks pardon through the blood of Christ! No, He is a just God, “Faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Sermon Conclusion: Faith and Confession
Justice Satisfied
The Need for Forgiveness and Confession
“I wish to hear you preach, sir, and there will be sufficient time for the post after service.”
“I insist upon your going now, Joseph.”
“I will not go at present.”
“You won’t?”
“No, sir.”
“Then you and I must part,” said Mr. Wesley.
“Very good, sir.”
The good men slept over it. Both were early risers. At four o’clock the next morning, the refractory helper was accosted with, “Joseph, have you considered what I said—that we must part?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And must we part?”
“Please yourself, sir.”
“Will you ask my pardon, Joseph?”
“No, sir.”
“You won’t?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I will ask yours, Joseph!”
Poor Joseph was instantly melted, and they were at once reconciled.
The Importance of Seeking Forgiveness
When once the grace of God has entered the heart, a man ought to be ready to seek forgiveness for an injury done to another. There is nothing wrong in a man confessing an offense against a fellow man and asking pardon for the wrong he has done him. If you have done anything against any man, leave your gift before the altar and go and make peace with him and, then, come and make peace with God.
You are to make confession of your sin to God. Let that be humble and sincere. You cannot mention every offense, but do not hide one. If you hide one, it will be a millstone around your neck to sink you into the lowest hell! Confess that you are vile in your nature, evil in your practice; that in you there is no good thing. Lie as low as ever you can at the footstool of divine grace and confess that you are a wretch undone unless God has mercy upon you.
The Role of Faith in Salvation
Then, the next duty is faith. While you are laying there in the dust, turn your eyes to Christ and say, “Black as I am and hell-deserving as I confess myself to be, I believe that Jesus Christ died for the penitent. And inasmuch as He died, He died that the penitent might not die. I believe Your merits to be great. I believe Your blood to be efficacious. And more than that, I risk my eternal salvation—and yet it is no risk—I venture my eternal salvation upon the merit of Your blood, Jesus. I cannot save myself. Cast the garments of Your blood-red atonement over me. Come, take me in Your arms. Come, wrap me in Your crimson vest and tell me I am Yours. I will trust in nothing else but You. Nothing I can do or ever did shall be my dependence. I rely simply and entirely upon Your mighty cross upon which You did die for sinners.”
Assurance of Salvation Through Faith in Christ
My dear hearers, as to any probability of your being lost after such a confession and such a faith, I assure you there is neither possibility nor probability thereof! You are saved. You are saved in time, you are saved in eternity! Your sins are forgiven. Your iniquities are all put away. In this life, you shall be fed and blessed and kept. Remaining sin within you shall be overcome and conquered. And you shall see His face at the last in everlasting glory, when He shall come in the glory of His Father and all His holy angels with Him.
“Whoever believes on the Son of God has eternal life, and shall never come into condemnation.”
“He that believes on the Lord Jesus and is baptized, shall be saved. And he that believes not shall be damned.”
The Justice of God and the Sinner’s Pardon
And now in conclusion, I have tried to tell you simply and plainly the story of how God’s justice is satisfied and has become the sinner’s friend. And I look for fruit—for where the gospel is simply preached, it is never preached in vain. Only let us go home and pray, now, that we may know the Savior. Let us pray that others may know Him, too. If you are convicted of sin, my dear friends, do not lose a moment—go to your chamber as soon as you get home, shut your door, go alone to Jesus and there repeat your confession and once more affirm your faith in Christ! And you shall have that peace with God which the world cannot give and which the world cannot take away! Your troubled conscience shall find rest—your feet shall be on a rock; and a new song shall be in your mouth, even praise forevermore—
The Power of Atonement and Peace
“From where this fear and unbelief?
Have You, O Father, put to grief
Your spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous judge of men
Condemn me for that debt of sin,
Which, Lord, was charged on You?
Complete atonement You have made
And to the utmost farthing paid
Whatever Your people owed;
How, then, can wrath on me take place
If sheltered in Your righteousness,
And sprinkled with Your blood?
If You have my discharge procured,
And freely, in my place, endured
The whole of wrath divine,
Payment God cannot twice demand—
First, at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine!
Turn, then, my soul unto your rest!
The merits of your great High Priest
Speak peace and liberty—
Trust in His efficacious blood,
Nor fear your banishment from God,
Since Jesus died for thee.”
Conclusion: Faith and Peace in Christ
