Series: Psalm
Title: He Who is Innocent and Just
Text: Psalm 15: 5
Date: July 11, 2013
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
Psalm 15: 1: «A Psalm of David.» LORD, who shall abide in
thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?...5: He that putteth not out his money to usury, NOR TAKETH REWARD
AGAINST THE INNOCENT.
This whole verse could be summed up this way:
the one who shall dwell with God in glory is he who is merciful and just. Such a one is perfectly merciful to give to
the poor man, without taking from him. And
he is perfectly just in that he will not take a bribe against an innocent man,
he will not pervert justice.
Title: Since
we are only looking at the second half of this verse, dealing with justice, I
have titled this: He Who is Innocent and Just.
Proposition: The
only just man—as God counts being just—is the GodMan, Christ Jesus. Only those
sinners who come to God in Christ Jesus the Just, shall justly be accepted and
dwell with our just God in glory for all eternity.
Division: 1) No
sinner is perfectly just of ourselves; 2) We will look at how just God is; 3)
The result of what Christ has done for his people
I. NO SINNER IS JUST IN OURSELVES
Both parts of verse 5, taken together, could
be summed up as “he who is not covetous.”
The first part deals with money: not extorting or taking advantage of
the poor, who is forced to borrow money from you. Also, the second half also deals with money:
not taking reward—a bribe—against the innocent—in any way whatsoever.
Covetous By Nature
Since we fell in Adam our nature—by
conception—is covetous. Covetousness is the
love of money—“the love of money is the root of all evil.” (1 tim 6: 10) And
scripture says covetousness is idolatry. (Col 3: 5) Idolatry is the worship of self as a god
because it is the worship of the works of our own hands.
Satan deceived Eve by telling her in the day
she and Adam disobeyed God, “their eyes would be opened and they would be as
gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3: 5)
The old serpent, like his preachers, tells half-truths: the sense in which
man became as gods is that in our corrupt heart we really think ourselves to be
as god. In our corrupt hearts, fallen
man worships self—you do and so do I—in our old man of flesh. Nothing brings out this truth like fallen
man’s love of money—at our core in our sin-nature we are covetous idolaters. And since we cannot be gods without power, in
our corruption, we think money is that power.
Money IS power, between sinners, in the sense that every other sinner
thinks money is power.
So at its core, covetousness is the worship
of self because we need money to set ourselves up as self-sufficient little
gods. Look at the way sinners without
money treat sinners who have great sums of money.
Illustration: Look at
the way sinners without money treat sinners who have great sums of money. The
entourages that follow pop singers scrape and bow before those singers because they
are gods to them—they don’t call them idols for nothing!—to them the pop star has
the money and as long as they are with their god they can do whatever he can
do.
So my point is this, because we are covetous
idolaters by nature, given the right situation, offered the right amount money,
sinners will take a bribe against the innocent—if not in the act—in the lusts
of the heart and either way it is sin. Now, let’s see God’s law. This is the
letter but it is spiritual—far more wide than the letter.
The Law is Too Broad and Wide For Us to Keep
It is forbidden by God to take a gift when it
creates a conflict of interest.
Exodus 23: 6: Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy
poor in his cause. 7: Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and
righteous slay thou not: [do not kill an innocent man] for I will not justify
the wicked. 8: And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and
perverteth the words of the righteous.
We are not to take money to obstruct justice
in any way.
Proverbs 17:23: A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment.
Hypothetical situation:
Say a person is to be tried in a court of law before judges. You have a deciding role in those court
procedures. You are not to take a gift
from either side because it blinds and perverts the ways of judgment. Say someone offers you $1000 dollars—you say,
“I can’t take it.” They say, “$50,000,
“$100,000, $1,000,000.” Most sinners have a price; most can be bought. At some point, you will begin to justify
yourself so you can soothe your conscious into taking that bribe, BECAUSE YOU
ARE SIN. And if you will not take the
bribe, even if we think about it, we have already broken the law in our heart before
God.
Again, we are not to take money to kill
someone.
Deuteronomy 27:25: Cursed be he that taketh reward to
slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Given the right situation: someone who has severely wronged you, a large enough
sum of money, given guarantee you will never be caught by the police, someone
threatens harm to you if you do not do it, etc.
Most sinners will justify self to promote or protect self and commit the
act—if it is made tempting enough. But
again, even if we don’t commit the act, the thoughts of how we could have and
how we could have spent the money and so on—make us guilty before God.
Isaiah 59: 7: Their feet run to evil, and they make haste
to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Matthew 15: 19: For out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies: 20: These are the things which defile a man:
We are not to shed innocent blood for the
bribe of religious acceptance.
Psalm 106: 34: They did not destroy the nations,
concerning whom the LORD commanded them: 35: But were mingled among the
heathen, and learned their works. 36: And they served their idols: which were a
snare unto them. 37: Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto
devils, 38: And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters,
whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with
blood.
In scriptures, infants are often referred to
as innocent blood—because they have not sinned like Adam sinned—that is
willfully. These people were literally shedding
the blood of their infants—sacrificing them—to the idol gods of Canaan.
In our day, though blood is not shed, men and
women who take their infants to be publicly sprinkled or baptized—are they not taking
the bribe of “the praise of men” or they not attempting to please God with
bribery by the sacrifice of their infants to the idol gods of Judaism and
papacy. Infant baptism or infant sprinkling is not equivalent to Old Testament
circumcision. Circumcision pictured the work of Christ and the work of the
Spirit putting off the old man of our defiling flesh.
Or what if we take the bribe of “the praise
of our children toward us” for letting them give themselves to the world of
pleasure, of sports or of entertainment?” Are we not sacrificing them to the
prince of the power of the air just for the bribe of their approval? While we still can, suffer their disapproval
and mak them attend the preaching of the word of God. God is their only hope.
For us personally, if we respect the persons
of one of our true brethren or receive the bribe of their praise toward us, to
join in with them in slandering another one of our brethren made innocent by
the blood of Christ or even if we silently agree with them, are we not taking a
bribe against Christ’s innocent child?
Still, we go even further, is not all freewill,
works religion a bribe to pervert true justice?
The people give the preacher money, a bribe. In turn the preacher bears false witness
against our innocent and just God and Savior. So justice is perverted, the
wicked are declared just, and they are all happy.
Then there is the way we, as believers, are
so apt to take the bribes of this world.
Bribes in the form of: promotions, honor, a title, praise, etc. We are very apt to let those things come
between us and the worship of the Innocent, Jesus Christ our Lord and
Savior. We need God, by his grace, to
continually keep us, turn us, and strengthen us in faith or we would surely
fall away. But we can by no means come
to God in our law keeping.
Point: I am
trying to show you that the law of our God is wide and deep and broad. It reaches to the heart, to the thoughts and
imaginations in so many various ways that you and I can in no way come to God
by our law keeping!
Holy Law is a mighty steed
Too many hands high
For me to mount and ride to glory
No matter how I try!
So you and I in our flesh of Adam are sinners:
covetous, self-worshippers, who will take a bribe against the innocent, in
thought, if not in deed. We are not
just. God requires absolute perfection
of justness in thought word and deed.
II. NEXT, LET’S LOOK AT HOW PERFECTLY JUST GOD IS (Deut
16)
We learn how that Christ is a Husband by
looking at God’s commands concerning a faithful husband; we learn how God is a
Father by looking at his commands concerning a faithful father. So too we can learn how God is just by
looking at his commands of a just judge.
What God commands he does. If God
shows his child what it is to be a faithful father and we know God is a
faithful Father to his eternally loved, elect child. And if God shows us how to be a faithful
husband and we know Christ is the faithful Husband of his Bride. Then especially in this most important matter
of judgement, when God speaks to his judges about being just we can be sure
that God is just.
God is a Just Judge
I have shown you before that in matters of justice,
God strictly prohibits charging—imputing—anyone with righteousness or with sin
when they are not so. To do so, is God’s definition of iniquity.
In
matters of justice, God strictly prohibits charging—imputing—anyone with
righteousness or with sin when they are not so. To do so, is God’s definition
of iniquity.
Deuteronomy 16: 18: Judges and officers shalt thou make
thee in all thy gates, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, throughout thy
tribes: and they shall judge the people with just judgment. 19: Thou shalt not
wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift
doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. 20: That
which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit
the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Illustration: If it is alleged you have committed a crime of which you
are not guilty, do you want a judge that will impute guilt to you when you are
innocent? If someone committed a crime
against you of which they are guilty, do you want a judge that will impute
righteousness to them when they are guilty?
Do you want a God who does? Well,
God’s laws to earthly judges show us that God is a just Judge:
2 Chronicles 19:6: And said to the judges, Take heed what
ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the LORD, who is with you in the
judgment. 7: Wherefore now let the fear of the LORD be upon you; take heed and
do it: for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, nor respect of persons,
nor taking of gifts.
Deuteronomy 25: 1: If there be a controversy between men, and
they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall
justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.
2
Samuel 23: 3: The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to [David], He
that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. 4: And he shall
be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without
clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after
rain.
Christ Jesus is the Just Judge
Over All
Christ Jesus
is that just Judge to whom all judgment has been committed. He says,
Proverbs 17: 15: He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth
the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.
Deuteronomy 32: 4: He
is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
Exodus 34:7: Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving
iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty
So by
this we see something of what a just Judge, God our Savior is. God will not justify the wicked. God will not
condemn the just. They both are an abomination to the LORD.
III. NOW, LET’S SEE WHAT CHRIST DID FOR HIS
PEOPLE AND THE RESULT.
Our
text asks, “Who shall God accept to abide with him in his holy mountain.” The
answer is, “He that will not take reward against the innocent.” We have seen we
are guilty. We cannot keep that law. We have seen God is just. He will not clear the guilty. So the great
question is this:
Job 25: 4: How then can man be justified with God? or how
can he be clean that is born of a woman?
How can
God be just—satisfy his justice. And at the same time justify those who believe
on him?
Christ is The Way.
Christ
Jesus is himself the Innocent and the Just. If the Spirit of God
records the words of the enemy in this book it is because they bear record of
the truth. Such is the case with Judas Iscariot and with Pilot.
Here is
Judas Iscariot’s testimony of Christ after he had betrayed him:
Matthew 27:4: Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed
THE innocent blood.
Here is
the testimony of Pilot concerning Christ:
Matthew 27:24: When Pilate saw that he could prevail
nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands
before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person:
see ye to it.
Listen very carefully: Christ, being the only man, not born of Adam’s corrupt
seed, the only man innocent, and being sent by God to be the Spotless Lamb of
God, according to God’s eternal purpose, Christ was just therefore fit to take
the place of the unjust whom God sent him to justify.
He did
so in the only way in which God could remain just. He came to declare God
righteous. So the Just Judge, before
pouring out justice upon Christ,
2 Corinthians 5:21: For he hath made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Galatians 3:13: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of
the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every
one that hangeth on a tree:
Be sure to get this: The how is between God and his Son. But the fact is
revealed for us to know and to bow and believe. What is revealed is that the
Just Judge did to Christ, the express image, what he foreshadowed in the
scapegoat in Leviticus 16: 21: He
“lay both his hands upon the head of the living Christ,
and confessed over him all the iniquities of God’s spiritual Israel, and all
their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of Christ.”
For all
the elect of God whom God chose before the foundation of the world:
Isaiah 53: 6: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of
us all.
This
is not simply recorded in one place in scripture. The truth that the just Judge made Christ
sin, laying the iniquities of his people on Christ, is repeated in numerous
places in scripture. Will we believe
God? Will we disregard the opinions of
men, tradition, our own opinions, and believe God?
Our Substitute
of himself was innocent and just, he knew no sin, he committed no sin—but God
will not condemn the just. Therefore, as
agreed upon in the eternal council of peace, Christ…
“his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we, being dead to sins, should live unto Righteousness: by whose stripes ye
were healed.” (1 Pet 2: 24)
So
then, Christ being made sin, God justly imputed sin to him then punished him
for sin until Christ said,
“It is finished and gave up the ghost.” (Jn 19: 30)
Then he
raised him from the dead, declaring the law has been honored, God is just, and justice
is satisfied for all God’s elect—they are reconciled to God and must be washed
in the blood of Christ and brought to faith in him and have the righteousness
of Christ imputed to them from the court of God into the court of their
conscience:
Acts 13:39: And by him all that believe are justified
from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.
Imputation is a Personal Charge
Listen: this is very important: God does not impute the righteousness of Christ to his
child personally until God has created us in righteousness by the new
birth. Wherever you find imputation in
scripture, you find that it is always a personal charge. Sin is imputed
personally either in justice on the great day of judgment or in mercy when God
begins to convert us. Righteousness is
imputed personally to us when God has brought us to cast all our care upon
Christ in faith. But sin or
righteousness is not imputed personally to us until we have a being.
We
became guilty of sin in Adam our Federal Head. But without a being, sin could
not be personally imputed to us. We were
given that being when we were conceived in natural generation by Adam’s corrupt
seed. So having sinned in Adam our Head
and having been created of Adam’s corrupt seed we come forth the dead fruit of
Adam. Therefore, when God personally imputes sin to us the charge is exactly
what our federal Head has made us—sin.
Likewise,
all God’s elect became righteous in Christ our Federal Head by his doing and
dying. But without a being righteousness cannot be personally imputed to
us. All we are until we are born again
by the Holy Spirit is the dead fruit of Adam.
We were given our being as a child of God, the living fruit of Christ, the
last Adam, by being conceived in regeneration by Christ’s incorruptible Seed. So having been made righteous in Christ our
Head and having been created of his incorruptible Seed, when God personally imputes
righteousness to us the charge is exactly what our federal Head and him alone, has
made us—righteous.
Romans 8: 1: There is therefore now no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
Spirit. 2: For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death.
All the Innocent Shall Be Quickened and
Converted
Now, do you suppose that a God so just that
he gave his own Son, who took the sins of his people, and purged all our sins, the
Judge who would by no means clear his own Son when sin was found on him—do you
suppose he will dare unjustly lay charge to one who is innocent by his shed
blood? No way!
Genesis 18: 25: That be far from thee to do after this
manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be
as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do
right?
If God
have but one just Lot, who he has made innocent by his own blood, left in this
world of Sodom and Gomorah, the just Judge of heaven and earth will not destroy
the righteous with the wicked.
Preacher,
is that why this world is still held in place?
Yes, by the “word of Christ’s power” which word is Christ’s “testament written
in his blood” this world is held in place until every last redeemed child is
washed in his blood and brought to faith. Because without faith it is
impossible to please God. So God will not charge sin to those for whom Christ
put away sin until they be given faith in his Son.
2 Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slack concerning his
promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not
willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Our Just God Will Not Take a Bribe Against
the Innocent
Now, do
you suppose that a God so just will dare take a bribe or allow any to lay
charge to you, believer, who he has made perfectly innocent through the blood
of his Son? No way!
Romans 8: 33: Who shall lay any thing to the charge of
God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. 34: Who is he that condemneth? It is
Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Who shall dwell in God’s holy mountain? Those made
innocent by Jesus Christ who “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust,
that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened
by the Spirit” Can any make one of Christ’s saints take a bribe against Christ
the Innocent, who made us so?—not as long as his Seed remaineth in us!
Application:
Sinner, any objection you have to my gospel ought to be at least as full of
wisdom as my gospel. I assure you: that
is impossible! Are you too ignorant to
see this wisdom of God in remaining just and yet justifying his guilty people?
May God make Christ Wisdom unto you! Are
you so unrighteous that you insist on taking/giving bribes against my Innocent
Redeemer? May God make Christ
Righteousness unto you. Is your heart so
defiled in sin that you will not bow to a God so merciful and so gracious to
his people? May God make Christ Sanctification to you! Are you so bound by your thirst to slay these
saints with the sword of your lies that you will not fall at the feet of this
just God? May God make Christ Redemption to you and melt your sword and make
you an instrument of peace. If not, be
assured: you shall not escape the justice of this just God!
Believer,
be assured, our just Judge shall see to it that you—his innocents—are brought
to him without one trace of the defilement of your sins where we shall abide in
the pristine holy mountain of our just Judge and Savior forevermore! To God be
the glory!
Amen!