04_05 Baptism – Raised for Our Justification

Document #04_05 is called, Baptism – Raised for Our Justification. Here you will find the truth about the meaning of baptism and what it accomplishes in our life. There is much to learn about where Jesus is working for our salvation, and how we access His intercession.

Scripture Text: Romans 4:25 – RSV

Title: Raised for our Justification (RSV)

Today, I’d like you to think back to your baptism, and carefully consider the reasons of your faith. If you have not yet been baptized, please follow along with us and prayerfully consider being baptized.

Can you tell me, Why do we get baptized? Is it merely to get our name on a church list of members? What is the right reason? Whether you realized it or not before your baptism, isn’t the right reason to be baptized because you don’t want to sin, any sin, any more?
Someone has shown you Romans 6, verse 23, which says that “the wages of sin is death:” and you have realized that you are unable to pay the price of even your past sins: but you want the promise of eternal life, so you turn to God for salvation and follow His prescription, beginning with seeking baptism. This is what is called repentance and conversion.
As you were taught by someone, to prepare you for baptism, you learned that when Jesus died on the cross of Calvary, our redemption price was paid. “The wages of sin is death:” Jesus paid it for you and for me, and for all of Adam’s children. (Read Romans 3:23, 24). Would you please keep your Bible open there, when you finish, for we will continue with verse 25.

Study this verse, while I explain this carefully worded passage. “God set forth Jesus to be a propitiation – the dictionary meaning of that word is, ‘something that would cause a court to be favorably disposed to forgive.'” [pro-pity-ation]

Continuing – “…through faith in His blood…to declare His righteousness [in our place that is] for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” Two more words to note: “remission,” and “past.”

Remission means, “to pardon, forgive, as a sin or a crime.”

What you didn’t know is that the dictionary doesn’t stop there. The dictionary goes on to say that it is a legal term, meaning, “to refer (a legal proceeding) to a lower court for further consideration.” This is very appropriate, because sins are forgiven, but, as we will see, they are still entered into court record for later consideration, in the court of heaven, at the end of the world!
Second word to note: “…for the remission of sins that are past.” Did you catch that? “…sins that are past.” This text is referring directly to baptism. All of your past sins are forgiven, covered by the sacrifice of Jesus, and the righteousness of Jesus is put in your place as yours, fully received, by faith. Isn’t that absolutely wondrous? Further, what is “faith in Jesus?” We believe that Jesus is saving us! Isn’t that right? “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.” Hebrews 7:25. Salvation is an on-going process in every believer.

Now: something else is fulfilled at baptism. Know it or not, you were making a Covenant with God. You want to stop sinning against God and be a citizen in His kingdom. God covenants with you that He will adopt you as His child, and help you to stop sinning. If you will be His obedient child, and keep His Ten Commandments, He will be your God, and will give you Holy Spirit to empower you to stop sinning. “For this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” Hebrews 8, verse 10.

In Peter’s first great sermon, he proclaimed, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2:38.

For this reason, we believe that, as at the baptism of Jesus, but in smaller measure, depending on our ability to receive Him, God gives Holy Spirit to us to direct our lives and empower us to obey His rules of life, as Jesus Himself did as a man. If we are fully willing to obey, Holy Spirit is given to us in larger measure than if we are still hedging with sins and are unwilling to live according to all truth as it is revealed to us.

I will leave it up to you to decide what your experiences have revealed about the measure of Holy Spirit given to you, and the increase, or decrease, as the case may be, of Holy Spirit’s power in your life due to your decisions since your baptism. Have you waxed strong in the Spirit, like John the Baptist did?

Following your baptism, and the making of your Covenant with God, begins anew your probation. You are then a child of God, a Christian, and you enter upon an experiential journey toward the kingdom of heaven, by faith in Jesus.

Please turn in your Bible to Hebrews 7, verse 24. I want to show you something. Hebrews 7:24-27. (read).
Did you notice the “High Priesthood” of Jesus? Now keep your finger there and compare this with our Scripture reading text, Romans 4:25. I found that the Revised Standard Version of the Bible says it a little more clearly than the wording of the KJV.
Romans 4:25; “Jesus was put to death for our trespasses, and raised for our justification.” Jesus was put to death for our trespasses; but He was raised from the dead unto His Priesthood in the heavenly Sanctuary, where He ever lives to make intercession for us! His intercession for us is what gives us our justification, isn’t it? He was raised from the dead to intercede for us for our justification. It is a very important point, as we will see.

The false gospel, preached everywhere else today, says that if we receive the truth that Jesus died for us, we will be saved unto eternal life. I say that that is a false gospel, because it stops there, inferring that we don’t have to stop sinning, stop breaking the Ten Commandments, but all we have to do is just keep asking God forgiveness, again and again for the same sins, claiming the blood of Jesus shed in His death.
If you think about it, that makes us our own intercessor, and leaves us totally without power to overcome sin in our lives. Will Jesus just keep forgiving sin, on into eternity? If we kill once we get to heaven, will not someone’s life be lost? Will we not finally self-destruct? Sin must stop, mustn’t it? (Read 1 John 3, verses 4-6, and v.22. Compare this with Romans 3:20, and then thoughtfully read Hebrews 10:26-31).

Let’s get it right. We are not justified by the death of Jesus. By His death we can be redeemed, not justified. We are justified by His life, His resurrected life, as our High Priest in the Heavenly Sanctuary. Romans 5, verse 10, says, “…we shall be saved by His life.”
But note the following statement carefully. Romans 5, verse 9, says, “…we are justified by His blood,” but this refers to His applied blood, not His shed blood. There is a difference as we will now see. The key to this correct understanding is in our Scripture reading text; Romans 4:25 – “Jesus was raised from the dead for our justification.” Jesus had to apply the blood of His sacrifice, as our High Priest in the true Sanctuary, or we could not be justified, and saved from our sins.
Allow me here to read Hebrews 8, verses 1 to 6. (read).
The Old Testament Sanctuary on earth was the example and shadow of what is going on in the Sanctuary in Heaven! Hebrews 9:24 says, “For Christ is not entered into the Holy Places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”

Verse 12 says, “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” And verse 14, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself, without spot, to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?”

Turn now to the baptism chapter of the Bible, Romans 6.

At baptism, “we are buried with Him into death.” Romans 6:4.Verse 6 continues, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him: that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” And verse 12, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of  righteousness unto God.”

So: at baptism we declare that we are not wanting to sin any sin, any more. We are turning to God for salvation from sin’s hold on us. God covenants with us to be our God, and He gives us Holy Spirit to guide and empower us to obey His will. Holy Spirit writes God’s Law in our hearts (as well as in our minds) through reminding us that Jesus, our Creator God, died for us: “If you love Me, keep My Commandments.” John 14:15. When Holy Spirit has written God’s Law in our hearts, then our new probation begins.
We are then a Christian. Jesus has redeemed us – paid all of the requirements of the Law. Because of our faith, He declares His righteousness in place of our past sinfulness. And from then forward, If we should stumble into committing a sin, He ever lives, as our High Priest in the Sanctuary in Heaven, to intercede for us.

But against what is Jesus interceding for us? Is it against God the Father? No way. God the Father is with Jesus, on our side in the heavenly court! “For the Father Himself loveth you.” John 16:27. It is against the requirements of the Law that They intercede for us!
When we break the Law of God, and repent of it, Jesus is our intercessor, who pleads His blood for our forgiveness. God the Father, the great supreme court judge, is willing to accept the price paid demanded by the Law, because His own Son paid that price for us! Thus the Law is satisfied by the mercy of God. “For by Grace are you saved through faith…it is the gift of God!” Eph.2:8.

But our own judicial system teaches that mercy must be answered by right-doing from then on. The forgiven criminal cannot go out and willfully commit the same or even another crime. If he does, next time before the court, they’ll “throw the book (of the Law) at him” – he will be the more severely punished.

Instead, he must refuse to commit crime of any kind. He must show the court that he is a changed man. He is justified by the court – treated as if he was a just and righteous person. But he is put on probation by the court!
Entered into the court record is the record of our sin, but with “forgiven” written as the court’s finding.
Since our baptism, we are on probation!

Now: those of us who are on the experiential journey to the kingdom of God know that by errors in judgment, we do make mistakes and break God’s Law again occasionally, but as we repent of it and go to Jesus confessing it, He again is willing to justify us and extend our probation. (Read 1 John 1, verse 9).

But let us be careful not to presume on His mercy! We must overcome sin! “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.” Revelation 2:11

Further, notice this: when our life ends, our probation ends. At the “end time,” in “the hour of His Judgment,” Jesus opens all of the court records and judges whether we became a right-doing person, whose settled way was to choose not to sin! (See Daniel chapter 7, verses 9 and 10)!
Did we, by faith in Jesus, and by the power of His Spirit within us, as it were, on the throne of our mind, overcome our propensity to sin, and continuously not want to sin any sin, any more? Did we become sanctified by our faith in Jesus? Would we be able to live eternally, because we would never sin again? Jesus, the righteous Judge, who knows our frame, will make that decision, based also on His omnipotent foreknowledge of our future.
Or will we be lost, because we put self on the throne of our mind, and thus had no power over sin in our lives, and would continue in sin, were we allowed to have life again?
When Jesus is through with that Judgment work, He will return in the Second Advent. He will cleanse the Sanctuary by removing all of the recorded-but- forgiven sins transferred there, and, bearing them on Himself, will place them on the head of the scapegoat, Satan himself, who is the author of sin!

The point that I have been leading up to is this: it is because the sacrificial blood of the Lamb of God must be applied, that our justification requires the resurrected Jesus to be our High Priest.
This truth, the Old Testament Sanctuary, as the example and shadow of the Heavenly Sanctuary, teaches, through the book of Hebrews. The Priest of the Old Testament applied the blood of the sacrifice. The blood was collected in a bowl, as the animal bled to death from a knife slash across the throat, which severed the jugular vein. Then, only the priest could apply the blood.

As man’s representative, he either (most of the time) dashed the blood against the altar of burnt sacrifice (outside) or, he carried it into the Holy Place, the first room of the Sanctuary, where he applied it, by sprinkling it before the vail first, and then by applying it to the horns of the altar of incense. (See Leviticus 4:13-18). For obvious reasons, the blood from all of the sacrifices could not possibly be sprinkled inside the Holy Place: but in several ways the priest symbolically bore the iniquity of the congregation in his own body, and when he did go in before the vail, he made atonement for them all. 1st Peter 2, v. 24, states that Jesus Himself bore our sins in His own body, to Calvary!

In like manner to the Old Testament priests, He is making atonement for us!

Let us carefully note what the priests of the Old Testament did, and consider why they did it. Turn to Leviticus chapter 4, verses 13 to 18. (Read).
What was done, and why? The elders of the congregation laid their hands on the head of the offering animal. Can you tell me why? The answer is that the animal now bore the sin, and died for it, in place of the sinners. The blood is given to the priest. Why does he go into the Holy Place, dip his fingers into the bowl of blood, and “sprinkle it before the Lord, even before the vail?”

Like the vail there between God and man, God put a vail between Himself and the dying Jesus upon the cross of Calvary! Remember the unnatural darkness? The blood shed upon the cross sprinkled upon the ground, seen by God, from beneath that vail, that hid His own Son from His sight! The earthly Temple vail didn’t touch the floor, and the symbolism is that the blood drops are seen, and noted, from the other side!
After the blood is sprinkled in this way, then it is applied by the priest to the horns of the altar of incense. Why? (We’ll see in a moment).
Then the priest put incense on the coals of the altar of incense. What does the smoke of the incense represent? The answer is that it represents prayers for forgiveness of sin, seconded by the intercession of the priest. In applying the blood to the horns of this altar, the bloody fingerprint of the priest was put onto the horns. The blood on these horns, which I believe faced inward, symbolically was carried with the smoke of the incense, up over the vail, and into the presence of God in the Most Holy place.

What else is there, in the Most Holy? …the Law; and the two cherubim on the “mercy seat” (the lid of the ark of the Covenant). This is the court room of Heaven! The one cherub represents the prosecuting attorney – called “Justice.” The other cherub represents the defense attorney – called “Mercy.” They look downward, through the transparent gold “mercy seat.” (See Rev. 21:18 and 21) They look through it to the 10 Commandment Law, written on the stone tablets by the finger of God! The Law has been broken by the penitent person out in the court-yard of the Temple. Angels record the sin, the prayer for forgiveness, the person’s repentance, and the blood
applied by the priest. Jesus offered His own blood on Calvary for all who would receive it, and went to heaven’s Temple to apply it to the altar of incense there!

The application of the blood, in the heavenly court, is the only personal receiving of its benefits by the repentant sinner! Even the blood sprinkled before the vail was not enough. The sinner must have our real High Priest, Jesus, apply His blood sacrifice in their particular case …sin by sin…till all sins are overcome by the power of Jesus’ gift of the Spirit.
Christ in you is your hope of heaven, or glory. See Colossians 1:27.

Jesus was put to death for our trespasses, but was raised from the dead for our justification. “If we confess our sins, Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1st John 1, verse 9.

Who do we pray to in confession of our sins? Where is He? Do we need the living Jesus? Do we need the Sanctuary truth? Have you personally followed our High Priest, by faith, on into the Most Holy, where He is now, where, since 1844, He has been judging the lives of the dead, and where, right now, while you are alive, He may be reading the book of record of your life, and preparing your final Judgment?

Do you believe in Jesus? Do you have faith in your High Priest in heaven? Is He your God, and are you His obedient child?
…If not, now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, today!

Download & Print Pamphlet Form
Download & Print Baptism Sermon