Last evening I tried to show that in securing justification God was doing something deeper.

There was a deeper problem to be solved than your unrighteousness before a holy God.

And that problem was that God seemed to be unrighteous because he passed over former sins.

In fact, the whole Old Testament, I think bears witness to this great truth that was revealed

right at the center of Mount Sinai.

God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love

for thousands and forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. So the very heart of the teaching of the law on Mount Sinai is the beautiful, glorious gospel declaration that God passes over in

equity, transgression, and saying that's the heart of Mount Sinai.

God passes over iniquity and transgression and sin, and therefore looks unrighteous.

And that's the first problem that had to be solved on the cross is the vindication of God's

allegiance to the worth of his glory that had been trampled in sin and was now just being passed over.

Something had to vindicate God's allegiance to the worth of his glory and it was the death of his son that the son would

pay a price equal to the glory that had been trampled, settled accounts for the people

of God and vindicated the glory of God.

Now I said last night you can't grasp that until you have a God-centered view of sin and righteousness.

Sin, Romans 323, is in its essence a falling short of the glory of God.

Sin is always a belittling of the glory of God. Sin is always a belittling of the glory of God. Sin is what David did, a

despising of the glory of God. It doesn't matter whether it's stealing or lying or

greed or sexual misconduct it's always Godward

I had a man in my office on on Wednesday

and I said are you a Christian?

And he said, no.

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