The Sanctifying Benefits of Justice (Part 1 of 2)

The Sovereign Conqueror of the Plunderers

Imagine a city in the seventh century that is so large, so secure, so great, so fortified that it even has a zoo. This city has an engineering marvel—a hydraulic irrigation system that feeds water to its beautiful gardens. It is a superpower in the known world: Nineveh.

Nineveh had a zoo, a hydraulic irrigation system, beautiful gardens, and fortified walls. It was a huge superpower. Nahum 1:12 says Nineveh is at the height of its power, full of strength, and numerous. The city is ginormous—it would take three days to cross—and it has well over 120,000 people.

The prophecy of Nahum is against Nineveh's impending destruction, but it is for God's people. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, correction, reproof, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. As part of our equipping, we have Nahum chapter 2.

Last week, we saw the surprise blessing of justice. This is a judgment text about justice. God judges Nineveh for its crimes and atrocities against humanity. God is the God of vengeance in attribute, but the once-for-all God of vengeance in action. What He avenges is His honor, reputation, holiness, and glory.

Their justice is well earned. Nahum's prophecy benefits us beyond last week's point that God poured out His vengeance on Jesus for our sins, so we will never face His vengeful wrath. You may be disciplined as a Christian, but never punished with wrath. This prophecy affects our sanctification: the sanctifying benefit of justice.

To see this, we look at three things. First, the sovereign conqueror of the plunderers. We sang of God as a mighty warrior.

Assyria is at the height of its glory when this prophecy comes. God picks it at peak power—no decline, civil wars, or bankruptcy. No excuse for its fall. Nahum 1:14 switches to the singular: the Lord has given a charge concerning you. This refers to the king, likely Ashurbanipal, a prideful man seated luxuriously on his throne.

Nahum 1:14: No more shall your name be perpetuated. From the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are worthless.

God antagonizes Ashurbanipal's inscription threatening judgment from his gods if his name is removed. Nahum prophesies on behalf of Yahweh that his name will end, his gods destroyed, and calls him worthless.

Isaiah 10:12: When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.

God says to this king: You think you're great, but you're worthless. Your name won't be perpetuated. Your gods won't judge Me—I'll destroy them and dig your grave. This is our God conquering kings, nations, and idols.

Why destroy idols? They represent what the worshipper treasures in place of God. Destroying the idol devastates the worshipper.

We may not have statues of Ishtar, but idols are anything not God. The Hebrew word for idol, maskil, means idol or imagination. Idols are physical manifestations of mental worship—concepts holding our affections, attention, treasure.

Don't think we're above Old Testament sins. Revelation speaks to churches:

Revelation 2:4: I have this against you.
Revelation 2:14: I have a few things against you.
Revelation 2:20: I have this against you.
Revelation 3:3: If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.

God judges Assyria by attacking what they value most, stinging their psyche. Verses 3-6 reverse fortunes: Assyria, once sieging others, now panics. Commanders stumble in chaos.

The zoo's lions are killed—no more den. Assyrians saw themselves as lions: secure, top of the food chain. God mocks: Where is the den of lions?

Nineveh, like a pool of water, will dry up—its irrigation wasted. God targets their pride. He judges brutality and attitudes toward Israel, but pride is central. He says, "Get ready," then declares them conquered—victory is sure.

God's justice comforts believers: His wrath was poured on Christ. No double jeopardy.

The Sovereign Comforter of the Plundered

Historically, Nineveh fell in 612 BC, ending Assyria. This comforted God's people: northern kingdom conquered in 722 BC, southern a vassal. Preaching against Assyria from Judah was risky. Destruction brought relief—"good news" of no more oppression.

It extends further: God's justice on the cross comforts us. But Nahum sanctifies. Nahum 1:12-13: God breaks Assyria's yoke off His people.

Nahum 1:12: Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.

Affliction was God's decree—Assyria was His rod of anger (Isaiah 10).

Isaiah 38:17: Behold, it was for my welfare that I had been afflicted; in love you have delivered my soul from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

Hezekiah: Affliction was for my shalom—completeness. Sins cast on God in Christ. We experience affliction with contentment, delivered from destruction. Nahum 1:15: God publishes shalom.

John Calvin: Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the result of it to be that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life... The Lord makes His people sensible of the vanity of the present life by a constant proof of its miseries.

Affliction cleanses, sanctifies, frees from worldly pursuits, focusing on God. Nahum 1:11: A worthless counselor came out; 1:15: Never again shall the worthless pass through you.

2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1: Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers... What accord has Christ with Belial?... What agreement has the temple of God with idols?... Come out from their midst and be separate... Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

We are God's temple. Idols are inside. Judgment texts instill fear of the Lord—seeing wrath on Assyria and Christ bearing ours. Balance fear and love: avoid legalism or antinomianism.

Response to Nahum: Renew feasts (celebration) and vows (consecration)—separation from worthless things. Ecclesiastes exposes life's vanities, centering on God. What pulls attention from the God who judged Assyria?

Weigh: Does it have eternal value, or is it Belial—worthless?

The Sovereign Convictor Against Pride

God especially hates Assyria's pride and arrogance.

Nahum 2:2: The Lord restores the splendor of Jacob like the splendor of Israel, even though plunderers have plundered them and ruined their branches.

The Greek translation: The Lord has put to flight the pride of Jacob as He did the pride of Israel. "Restore" means restore or rebuke; "splendor" means splendor or pride. God restores by rebuking Israel's pride.

A text judging Assyria's pride teaches Israel to drop their own—seeing God judge Assyria chases away Israel's pride. Like church discipline: seeing someone disciplined for your sin convicts you.

Discomfort with Another Bearing Our Punishment

Would you feel comfortable watching somebody bear the punishment for the very same sin you're committing? Would you feel comfortable knowing that someone else is judged for your sin? This comes across in two ways with the book of Nahum. Nahum points forward to Christ, but it also exists in its historical reality. If it's pride that God is judging in Assyria, do you really feel like you could exist proudly knowing that an entire nation was judged because of it? It would be very difficult to read Nahum in its historical context with pride being the centerpiece of our lives.

What it's important that it points forward to specifically is the cross: Would you feel comfortable beholding Jesus upon the cross, bearing the wrath of his Father for your sin and feeling comfortable knowing that he's being judged because of what you've done? We get that Old Testament reality of looking at the judgment there as being beneficial for us today from 1 Corinthians 10:11:

These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

We look at those not as us being the heroes of the story—God ultimately is the hero of Nahum—but as the failings of the people in the Old Testament context, recognizing that even to a certain degree of specificity they are the exact same failures that we have. We are in desperate need of something not just to initially save us, but something to continue to sanctify us.

The idea that we draw from Nahum in a New Testament context is looking at Christ, bearing the punishment for sins, as a tool for chasing away the sins within our own lives. How often do you think of Christ as having borne the punishment for your sins? For you, has the cross simply become a historical reality? We know Jesus was put to death. One of the things that makes it absolutely impossible for the apostles to have made up Christ is that they did a really bad job making up a Christ. If they picked an Old Testament Messianic, kingly, anointed figure, and then he's murdered as a criminal, the only thing they could do is recognize the historical reality that Jesus was murdered. There's no way you could make him up. He was a literal historical figure, but is that all that he is for you? Do you think about him as having borne your punishment for sins?

Christ Bearing Specific Sins

Now, if you think about Christ as having borne the punishment for your sins, do you think about Christ as having borne the punishment for specific sins? What's the difference? It's something that happens on a regular basis where we can't talk about with one another the specific sins that we're committing. "How are you doing? How is your struggle against sin?" The general response is, "Well, I'm just a sinner and I'm in need of God's grace." Maybe it's a faux profundity to actually say, "I'm struggling with a specific sin. I'm aware of this sin as having a specific stronghold within my life."

Are you thinking of Christ as having borne punishment for specific sins? By that I mean Christ being treated as the one who's sinned those specific sins. Do you think of Christ judged as the prideful sinner? Christ judged as the fornicator? Christ judged as the abuser? Christ judged as the liar? Christ judged as the God denier? Christ judged as the unfaithful spouse? Christ judged as the one who forsakes the gathering of the brethren? Christ judged as the drunkard? Christ the thief, Christ the cheater, Christ the criminal executed upon the cross?

What does repentance and confession of sin look like? Does it look like simply acknowledging the existence of the sin, but not recognizing that instead of you being treated as the one who just looked at what you shouldn't have been looking at, who just did what you shouldn't have been doing, that Christ was treated as the one who looked at what he shouldn't have been looking at and did what he shouldn't have been doing? Now he's sinless. He didn't do any of those things. He lived the perfect life, completely sinless. That's the reason why he's capable of providing perfect satisfaction to God for our sins. But he actually dealt with specific sins that we've committed, and our repentance and sanctification looks like beholding Christ upon the cross, not just simply as a historical reality, but as the one who took my hell so that I can get his heaven.

Galatians 3:1 says,

O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

The Galatians weren't publicly there at the crucifixion of Jesus—that's not what Paul is saying. He uses the word prographō. Graphō means to write. He says it was before your eyes that Christ was written about beforehand as crucified. It's a term that also refers to public proclamation of something. It was before your eyes that Christ was publicly portrayed in the preaching of the gospel. So gospel preaching and gospel reading must do what we're talking about, where we behold Christ upon the cross, recognizing the reality of him bearing our sins. Any preaching that does not recognize or show you the significance of what Jesus has done isn't preaching the gospel or isn't preaching it fully. Is Christ before your eyes publicly portrayed as crucified, bearing every single one of your sins?

Closing Questions for Reflection

Here are a few closing questions in addition to some of those that were interspersed in the message.

Number one: Does it make you feel uncomfortable to think about Christ being treated with your sins? It's interesting how antagonistic the gospel is and how much discomfort it creates, that we would become so clichéd with the gospel that it does not have the same kind of impact in our lives on an ongoing basis. It should make you feel uncomfortable to think about Jesus, your perfect Savior, being treated as the one who did those horrendous sins that we do on a regular basis.

Number two: Does it motivate you to want to change? Does it motivate you to want to change knowing Christ was treated with your sins? If we just simply talked about the fact that what you're doing is wrong, you need to change, you need to do something different—and that's all that we said, that's all that we preached about—we're giving you nothing more than moralism. It's nothing different than what they could do in Alcoholics Anonymous or in psychology. It's just giving you a sense of moralism, which has no power, has no motivation. But if we recognize what Jesus has done on our behalf, freeing us up from sin, does that then become the motivating reason for you to change? Because you're both grateful for what he has done and you recognize the significance of what he has done—that I should have been the one who received that wrath of God. And now I'm motivated to change. That's what we would call gospel living.

Number three: Does that motivate you to worship God? Does that free you up from not being so concerned about the comforts and the happiness that we could find within this world, but that we're motivated from what God has done to offer up worship? We're not motivated by an amazing melody or a virtuoso musician to invoke us to praise God—the God we may not even know. But that we're motivated by the sense of even a certain degree of obligation because of what Christ has infinitely paid on our behalf to then come into a worship service and offer up worship to God and to demonstrate a life of worship throughout the rest of the week. Does that motivate you to do that?

Number four, which kind of summarizes everything that we've been discussing: We looked at from 2 Corinthians 6 the idea of God living with us, God dwelling with us. One of the reasons why the Old Testament laws—the 613 or so commands in the first five books of the Old Testament alone—were so super strict is because you see the failures of Israel as the reality of the impossibility of living the law of God perfectly, hence Christ. These are why those laws are so strict and so regulative and so isolating in some senses for the people of Israel—because if we lived with God, God would be the source of our enjoyment, satisfaction, and contentment. So if living with God was all you had, would you be satisfied? And is that exciting to you, the prospect of being able to live with God and enjoy Him forever?