1 Timothy 3:16
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
Justified in the Spirit
To be justified is to be made right with God also known as righteous in the sight of God and acceptable to His holy standard. I have heard this modification of the word justified in the following sentence used as explanation. “Just as if I’d never sinned”. The only way our sins could ever be forgiven and forgotten forever was by the Lord Jesus Christ shedding His blood, dying on the cross, and being buried for us. In the same fashion, the only way we could ever be quickened or made alive, thus being made acceptable to God in His beloved Son was by our Lord Jesus Christ being resurrected from the dead and our being clothed with Christ’s righteousness. We see this clearly defined in Romans 4:25 when the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Paul to say this about Christ’s death and resurrection:
Who was delivered for offenses and raised for our justification.
As we read the second aspect of the mystery of godliness, which is God “justified in the Spirit”, this specifically takes in view the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and Him being the “firstborn from the dead”. Now someone may say, “hey but weren’t other people before this raised from the dead, in fact didn’t Jesus raise people from the dead?” Very good question, and the answer is yes other people were raised from the dead, but their bodies were not changed into eternal bodies like our Lord Jesus Christ was. Those that were raised from the dead, still ended up dying again. So our Lord is literally the firstborn from the dead.
Another question that might be asked is, “how was the Lord Jesus Christ justified in the Spirit, how was He made right with God, when He is and always has been God, He didn’t have the need to “made right or made righteous” did He?” The answer is no, He didn’t need to be made righteous, but we did. We know that our Lord Jesus Christ has always been righteous, He was righteous in eternity past, righteous during His earthly ministry, and He is righteous forever more. So when we read that God was justified or “made right” in the Spirit, this does not hold in view our Lord having to made right from sin, but rather shows that by God the Father raising Christ from the dead in the power of the Holy Spirit, He was made the firstborn from the dead. By doing this, He created the way for all who would believe in Him to be made right in Him and providing direct access to God the Father in prayer through our Lord. We received this right standing with God, the second we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and were saved. We were literally raised with Him in the Holy Spirit so we could walk in newness of life, while here on earth. We received the “earnest” of the Holy Spirit and our Spirit became alive, and when we are finally resurrected when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back for us, then we will experience the redemption of our bodies as well as they are changed into eternal living bodies. Here are a number of verses which point to some of the things we have been discussing:
Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you.
Romans 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus.
1 Corinthians 6:14 And God has both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by His own power.
Romans 8:29-30 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified.
Colossians 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
So as we again contemplate this second aspect of the mystery of godliness and desire to “exercise ourselves to godliness”, we must realize that in order to do so it has to by the power of the Holy Spirit and not our flesh or our will. By the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit we can walk in newness of life as we read in Romans 6:4
Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Note: Please note the baptism mentioned in the above verse is not some water ceremony done with human hands, but is actually the operation of God performed the moment we believed in the Lord Jesus. God sealed us with His Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit identified us with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. Lord willing, we will look at this further in a future post.
Continuing our study, we must now revisit a sobering verse we briefly looked at a couple of posts ago. 2 Timothy 3:5
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
The context in which the apostle Paul issues this dire warning consists of him explaining the last days and the way men will be behaving wrongly. My opinion is that this chapter is talking about professing Christians in the last days. When Paul talks about them having a form of godliness, we must realize that the verse we have been examining the past few posts is a verse that explains godliness. So when he talks about those who have a form of godliness, he is talking about those who know or affirm or preach the different parts of godliness we are looking at. But these same individuals he is talking about deny the power from which godliness is produced, which is the Holy Spirit and the application of this specific part we are looking at today, which is “justified in the Spirit”. As we rejoice in knowing the gospel of the grace of God and gaining understanding in the preaching of the Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery, we must realize the knowledge of these things alone is not what causes us to live Godly in Christ Jesus, but rather it is the Holy Spirit working the Word of God and the Lord Jesus Christ living His life through us. As we read in 1st Corinthians 13, we can understand all mysteries, and all knowledge but if we don’t have the love of Christ, we are nothing.
When we think of having a “form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” we also immediately think of the Pharisees during our Lord’s earthly ministry as an example. These Pharisees held the fundamental truths of God’s Word, especially in light of the Saduccees who were denying some of those truths. But though they were correct concerning the form of God’s Word, they were blind as bats because they used it to justify themselves and they were operating according to their own works instead of God’s works. God’s Word was not being mixed with faith, which would have given them a correct view of their sinfulness and need for a Savior. Oh how this should cause us to walk circumspectly, so we might not turn the knowledge of the mystery and the grace of God into a system by which we approve ourselves and condemn others! How then do we ensure that we don’t deny the Holy Spirit which is the power of godliness? How can we ensure that it is Christ living His life in us and through us to others and not our own tricky flesh or motives? How can we ensure that “what we have begun in the Spirit, we do not continue by the flesh” as is written in Galatians. By yielding to the Lord through prayer and His Word. Prayer with our heavenly Father through our Lord Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit is so important. Do you feel like when you pray, that it doesn’t feel like you are talking to God, then tell Him that, that’s the best place to start in prayer. Tell God everything, He is your heavenly Father. If you want to hear what He says, you have to read His Word.
As we close this look at the second aspect of the mystery of godliness, we rejoice that when the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, He was raised for our justification. The same Holy Spirit that powerfully raised our Lord, works in us and raised us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection. The Holy Spirit works in us during this life as He sanctifies and grows us spiritually, and He will also raise us up physically when our Lord Jesus Christ returns for us. Our bodies will be changed to glorious, eternal bodies fashioned like our Lord Jesus Christ”s body. We know that when our Lord justified us in the Spirit, He clothed us with His righteousness, may we pray that God would teach us to yield to Him more so the fruits of His righteousness, His grace, and His working may work out of us.
