Prov 12/20/76; Rom 1/30/77, 6/16/77
A. Definition and Description.
1. Divine grace is administered through the essence of God. Ultimately, all blessing or discipline from God to us must be filtered through His justice. As goes the justice of God, so goes blessing or cursing to us
. 2. What God provides in grace must not compromise His perfect essence.
3. Love is the motivation of grace, but justice is the function of grace. Love isn’t a mechanic of grace.
4. Therefore, God’s justice must be free to give blessing to sinful man without violating divine integrity. Whatever you receive in blessing, divine justice must “OK” it first. Justice must approve everything that comes from God to man.
5. God’s motivation is love; His decision is sovereignty. But neither love nor sovereignty can go any farther than justice will take them. Justice has the final say in whether you will be blessed or cursed in this life
. 6. So how can God avoid compromising His perfect righteousness and still have a relationship with us? The missing link is our adjustment to the justice of God. 7. You cannot adjust to any of the other characteristics of God. You can only adjust to the justice of God. Once you adjust to the justice of God, everything else in your life will fall into place.
8. Adjustment to the justice of God is the divine freedom for justice to provide either blessing or cursing for us through grace without compromising or jeopardizing any aspect of the essence of God. Whether you are blessed or cursed, the integrity of God is never violated or compromised, but remains in status quo.
9. Adjustment to the justice of God occurs in three categories: salvation, rebound, and spiritual maturity.
B. Salvation Adjustment to the Justice of God.
1. God is fair; it is impossible for God to be unfair because He has perfect righteousness and immutability. God can’t change what He is: perfect justice. When perfect righteousness and justice team up, the blessing of salvation must be provided without any compromise of divine essence.
2. Divine justice administers what divine perfect righteousness demands. Therefore, perfect righteousness makes a demand upon justice: that justice cannot save anyone in the human race unless perfect righteousness is perfectly satisfied and remains in status quo. This means all the sins of the human race must be judged in Someone qualified. Justice must judge to maintain the perfect status quo of divine perfect righteousness. Deut 32:4; 2 Chron 19:7; Job 37:23; Ps 19:9, 50:6, 58:11, 89:14; Isa 45:21; Jer 50:7; Rom 3:26; Heb 10:30-31, 12:23.
3. When Jesus Christ was on the cross, our sins were poured out on Him and judged by the justice of God. 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Cor 5:21.
4. The guilt of the sinful human race was shifted to Jesus Christ on the cross, Rom 5:12, 6:23. We are born spiritually dead, but we are not born guilty!
5. Therefore the justice of God was propitiated by the efficacious sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
6. The scene of the cross was a real and perfect courtroom scene. The work of Christ satisfied the justice of the Father, and freed anyone to believe in Christ, so that man is free to adjustment to the justice of God. The justice of God is now free to pardon, and more - to justify sinful mankind through man’s non-meritorious adjustment to the justice of God, Rom 3:21-28, 4:5, 8:1.
7. This adjustment to the justice of God is instantaneous at the moment we believe in Christ, Jn 3:16, 20:36; Acts 16:31. Of all things non-meritorious in life, the greatest of all is faith.
8. Only faith in the object of Christ can provide that instant adjustment to the justice of God. When man believes in Christ, the justice of God is free to provide for Him the forty things of salvation.
9. For those who do not adjust to the justice of God at salvation, the justice of God is not free and must condemn to the lake of fire forever those who do not believe in Christ, Jn 3:18, 36. You can’t have heaven without hell. The link is the justice of God; He must be fair. The justice of God is only free to curse negative volition at the point of God- consciousness or Gospel-hearing. If God did not send unbelievers to hell, His justice is compromised and therefore there is no salvation.
C. Rebound Adjustment to the Justice of God.
1. Rebound is technical for the believer’s restoration to fellowship and recovery of the filling of the Holy Spirit. This technique is necessary because the believer continues to have an old sin nature after salvation.
2. 1 Jn 1:9 says that this adjustment to the justice of God occurs through our naming, citing, or confessing our sins. Because the believer’s sins were judged on the cross, this adjustment to the justice of God is also instantaneous. It is possible by simply naming your sins. How you feel makes no difference because judgment already has been accomplished, Ps 32:5, 38:18, 51:3-4; Prov 28:13; Jer 3:13; 1 Cor 11:31; 1 Jn 1:9.
3. When the believer confesses a sin, the justice of God is free to forgive that sin because the justice of God was propitiated at the cross. Only justice and no other part of God’s essence can forgive sin. It is a matter of justice which gets us back in fellowship.
4. Therefore the believer cites his sins directly to God and is immediately restored to fellowship, and the filling of the Holy Spirit is resumed in place of grieving or quenching the Holy Spirit. This is a private matter between the believer and God.
5. Blasphemous approaches to the rebound adjustment to the justice of God:
a. To confess sins to other believers; they can’t absolve you from sin.
b. To feel sorry for your sins and count on that for your forgiveness.
c. To go through some system of penance or works.
6. Rebound adjustment to the justice of God is never a licence to sin; the only licence is the encouragement for the believer to adjust to the justice of God, recover from sin, and continue in his spiritual momentum.
D. Maturity Adjustment to the Justice of God.
1. Through the consistent and daily function of GAP (grace apparatus for perception), the believer reaches the maturity barrier and breaks through into supergrace A where the believer has rest and relaxation, and then his momentum is continued.
2. Then the believer moves into supergrace B where God is glorified. Finally, God is pleased in the primary zone of blessing: ultra-supergrace.
3. These categories of spiritual growth have two zones of blessing. In the secondary zones of supergrace A and supergrace B, God is glorified; in the primary zone of ultra supergrace, God is both glorified and pleased.
4. Maximum doctrine in the soul of the believer frees the justice of God to provide blessing for the mature believer.
5. This blessing is called paragraph supergrace 2. There are five categories in this blessing package. Some of the blessings are received immediately, while others are received as the believer continues to grow. The five categories in paragraph supergrace 2 are: spiritual, temporal, association, historical, and dying blessings.
E. Maladjustment to the Justice of God.
1. Either mankind will adjust to the justice of God and be blessed or the justice of God adjusts to him and he will be cursed.
2. If man doesn’t adjustment to the justice of God, then the justice of God is only free to punish, discipline, and judge.
3. The issue in the Christian life is that we either adjust to the justice of God and receive blessing from God, or the justice of God will adjust to us and we will receive divine discipline from God.
4. Adjustment to the justice of God is the difference between cursing and blessing.
5. When mankind doesn’t adjust to the justice of God it is called maladjustment.
6. Maladjustment can occur in salvation, rebound, or doctrine.
F. Salvation Maladjustment to the Justice of God.
1. This is the rejection of Jesus Christ as your personal Savior through negative volition at Gospel hearing. The justice of God adjusts to the unbeliever in eternity by throwing him into the lake of fire.
2. Any unbeliever who is establishment oriented is not judged in time, only in eternity. But the unbeliever reversionist is judged in both time and eternity, 2 Pet 2; Rom 1:18-32.
3. So salvation maladjustment is the basis for spending eternity in the lake of fire, as well as the basis for much of the great sorrow, tragedy, heartache, and disaster in history.
G. Rebound Maladjustment to the Justice of God.
1. This is the believer’s failure in time.
2. The believer is permanently indwelt by the Holy Spirit in his body. But through carnality and/or reversionism, he loses the filling of the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit controlling his soul.
3. Grieving the Spirit is carnality; quenching the Spirit is reversionism.
4. Perpetuation of carnality results in divine discipline, and if left unchecked eventually leads to reversionism.
5. Without the filling of the Holy Spirit, the believer cannot perceive Bible doctrine.
6. Failure to rebound results in judgment and discipline from God. It keeps the believer off balance for his entire life. The inevitable result is reversionism.
7. Any believer can be spiritual or carnal. The reversionistic believer doesn’t rebound.
8. If you add anything to naming your sin, that is legalistic and not efficacious, for legalism and grace are mutually exclusive. Then your rebound is ineffective because no grace is involved.
H. Maturity Maladjustment to the Justice of God.
1. This is rejection, apathy, or neglect of doctrinal teaching; it results in reversionism and coming under the influence of evil.
2. This is the Christian counterpart to heathenism.
3. In eternity, maturity maladjustment means loss of rewards, loss of decorations, and loss of special blessings. In time it means warning, intensive, and dying discipline.
I. Grace and the Justice of God.
1. God waits to be gracious, Isa 30:18; Prov 1:3(?).
2. The Lord waits for our three adjustments to His justice, especially maturity adjustment. There is no supergrace blessing to the believer apart from maximum Bible doctrine in his soul.
3. Compassion is grace in action. Grace action comes through justice. “For the Lord is a God of justice.”
J. Adjustment Verses Maladjustment.
1. Maladjustment or adjustment to the justice of God is the issue in your life. This concept is portrayed in Eccl 9:13-10:13.
2. People don’t appreciate Bible doctrine in the believer’s soul; only God does. Don’t count on people to bless you.
3. Only Bible doctrine counts, not people. Only Bible doctrine saves the country; it is the secret weapon that wins wars.
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