Am I on?
Morning, saints.
It’s the first Sunday of the month, so what does that mean? Huh? It means it’s March the second. That’s right. It’s the first Sunday of the month, and so we’re going to look at one of our foundational messages, or topics. Today, we’re going to look at this subject of justification.
I think it’s pretty clear by now. It came out quite a bit in the worship time, and it was mentioned in the announcements. And thus, here I stand.
If you would, open to the book of Romans. We’re going to read one verse to get warmed up, but I want you to open to the book of Romans. I’m going to read one verse; you don’t need to turn to that one.
I’m reading out of the New American Standard Version, for those that are interested. I will be quoting some other versions at times. I’m going to read out of Philippians 3:9. This is Paul speaking, and he said:
And that I may be found in Him,
not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law,
but that which is through faith in Christ,
the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.
Now, I want to ask a question as we get started. How many in this room have been a believer twenty years or more? Raise your hand. Wow, that’s a lot. Okay, you all have to come up and speak a bit with me, though.
How about ten years, around ten years? Okay, how about five? One year? How about a day or a week? Any newly born again?
I just want to start by saying, whether you’ve been born again thirty years or more, twenty years, ten, or even one day, if you have placed your trust in Christ as your Savior, you have before God the very same standing as one who has been a believer for thirty years or more. And that’s simply because that standing, or that righteousness, is Christ Himself.
Recently, when our group was on, I opened the meeting and shared on this matter, and thus that’s why I’m here now. The brothers asked if I would consider this for a topic.
We did mention a few things at that time. One thing we mentioned was that there are no degrees to this matter of justification, and that’s a beautiful thing. Once we come to the Lord Jesus, once we’re saved, He declares us righteous.
Let me read a quote, if I may, just to set forth the significance of this matter. Thomas Watson said, “Justification is the very hinge and pillar of foundation.” And why is this so?
You remember in the book of Job, which is the oldest book in the Bible, Job asked the question, “How can a man be right before God?” We answer that in this matter of justification. It’s the most foundational, most important religious—if I may use that word—question anyone can ask: How can I be right with God?
Let me give a definition before we get into our text. This is not my definition, by the way. I leveraged this from my brother:
Justification is the act of God whereby He declares the believing sinner righteous in Christ, on the basis of the finished work of Christ.
I want to point out a couple of things in that definition. First, it is the act of God. It’s not a process. This matter of justification is not a process.
And I want to point out that it is a declaration. God pronounces the believing sinner righteous. He doesn’t make the sinner righteous; that would confuse sanctification with justification. He declares it, and it is on the basis of the finished work of Christ.
For my outline, I’m going to leverage something out of the book of Romans. Paul has left us a beautiful outline of this matter of justification. We know this book is really about the gospel, and one aspect of the gospel is this matter of justification. So, if you turn to Romans 3—trying to battle off the cottonmouth—this will be our outline.
First, we’re going to look at justification by faith explained. We find this in Romans 3:21-26. Then we’ll briefly look at justification by faith illustrated out of Romans 4. Lastly, we’re going to look at the blessings of justification by faith out of Romans 5, and we’re just going to look at verses 1 and 2. It actually goes all the way through verse 11.
Justification by faith explained: Romans 3:21-26. Let me give you a little outline of what we’ll look at in this section. First of all, let me say that these are six tightly packed verses. This is a beautiful portion of Scripture. For me, it’s hard to describe. It’s one of my favorite portions of Scripture.
Along with that, you have Ephesians 1:3-14, which speaks about our blessings in Christ—which, by the way, is all one sentence. It’s amazing what Paul said there.
We have six tightly packed verses here, and we’re going to approach them in this fashion:
If you look at these verses, you’re going to notice something right away that will jump out at you in verse 21: the righteousness of God. This word, and its equivalent, appears in this section—that is, verses 21 through 26—seven times.
It’s very interesting to me that in this section, in such an important matter, the word love doesn’t come up at all. Now, it is referred to, and we’ll see that, but the word itself doesn’t come up at all. I think that’s because Paul here is speaking in legal terms. He’s speaking in terms of a court, in a fashion of justice. So this word, righteousness, appears here seven times.
Now, to get started, let’s define this word. We don’t want to spend a lot of time on it. Really, my heart for this time is that we just kind of whet your appetite, because our heart is really that we’ll dig into this in our Friday-night meetings. I want to put forth something that will whet our appetites and give us something to feast on on Friday nights.
This matter of the righteousness of God can be broken down like this. First and foremost, it is that God Himself is righteous. It speaks of His attribute of righteousness. It speaks of the fact that He must act in righteousness.
Thus, being righteous, it also speaks of the fact that God demands righteousness. And lastly, which we clearly see in this section, God provides righteousness. And that’s where we kind of come in.
You’ll notice in verse 21 that this righteousness of God has been manifested. It has now been made known. In the past, there were glimpses, types, and shadows. But now it is set forth. It has been manifested and revealed.
Notice that it says that it is witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. Why is this important? Why is it important that it is witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets?
In Deuteronomy 19:15, it basically says that a fact is confirmed by two or more witnesses. That came out of the Law. So, we see that God even places Himself, if you will, under the Law to establish this fact of righteousness.
How do the Law and the Prophets speak of this righteousness? First, the Law speaks through sacrifices. We see in the sacrifices that God set forth what was demanded of the sinner. And maybe more importantly, we see this beautiful principle of substitution, where an animal is taken on behalf of individuals and sacrificed and killed in their place.
Also, we see that it is witnessed to by the Prophets. I’ll just take two illustrations. One is from Isaiah 53:11, starting in the second part of the verse:
By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many,
as He will bear their iniquities.
And the other is Jeremiah 23:6, starting in the latter part of the verse:
And this is His name by which He will be called:
The Lord Our Righteousness.
So, this righteousness of God is witnessed to by the Law and the Prophets. In other words, it’s not anything new, but now it has been fully manifested. It is no longer just seen in a type or a shadow; it is brought before us in full force.
Now let’s look at this outline, starting with apart from law. Your versions might read, “apart from the Law,” but in the original the article is not there. The “the” is not there.
Why is that significant? Why is it significant that it is apart from law? Because God is setting forth, first and foremost, that this matter of righteousness—the righteousness of God—is altogether apart from the principle of law. It is altogether apart from the principle of works.
We see in the former chapters leading up to this that Paul, as it were, is like a salesman. Paul, as a salesman, if you will, has this product, and it is called justification.
How many in here, by the way, are in sales? Anybody? We got just one? I mean for a vocation. What is the key thing, as a salesperson, that you need to do when you’re trying to sell your product?
Exactly. You need to somehow convince them of their need for the product. If you can do that, you can sell the product, even if it’s a rusty old nail. If somehow you can say, “Oh, you need this rusty nail,” you can sell it.
And Paul, as it were, has this product that he wants to show forth. It’s called justification. So he goes forth in these former chapters, from the middle of chapter 1 right up to the middle of chapter 3, setting forth the need. And that need is that every human has a need of a Savior.
He sets forth the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In Romans 3:9, he concludes that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. Look at the description God gives of mankind, starting in verse 10:
There is none righteous, not even one;
there is none who understands;
there is none who seeks for God.
Going down to verse 13:
Their throat is an open grave.
And in verse 15:
Their feet are swift to shed blood.
God sets forth here that man is corrupt from head to toe. Paul has shown through these principles that God will use to judge humanity that all are guilty before Him.
So when we come to verse 21 and see that “but now”—“But now a righteousness of God has been manifested”—and that it is apart from law, that should be such a shout of cry in our hearts that God has provided a way. And it is altogether different from a principle of works.
So what is this principle? We find that it is through faith in Christ. Verse 22 says:
Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Faith is really only as good as the object that you place it in. All men trust something, if only themselves. But we find that in this matter of justification, there are no grounds for trusting in ourselves. There is none of us that will measure up.
So God sets forth this principle of faith, and notice that it is faith in Jesus Christ. It is a specific thing in which we place our trust. You remember that the Lord Jesus said:
Except you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins.
It is a specific belief in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ—Who He is and what He has done.
We see in verse 22 that this justification is for all. It is for everyone. Now, this doesn’t sound unusual to us, but if you had told this at that time to a Jew, you would have had a problem with this. He would have said, “The Gentiles have nothing to do with God. They have nothing to do with this Law. They have nothing to do with His ways.”
But, as stated earlier in the book, God is the God of the Jew and the Gentile. Thus, it is God’s heart to extend this righteousness to all. We see that it is for all because there is no distinction. See that at the end of verse 22. Your version may say, “There is no difference.”
How is there no difference or distinction? There is no difference because we have all sinned, and we have all fallen short of the glory of God. That is verse 23.
So, there is no difference in the method which God uses to declare men lost sinners. But going on to verse 24, there is also no difference in the method God uses to declare men as righteous as Himself.
In verse 24, we see that this justification is by grace. The word comes from the Greek word charis. We get the word charity from it, which eventually evolved into the word love.
But we see that this justification is purely by grace. That is, it is totally outside of ourselves; it is totally done by God. And I love the word that is used here. Some versions say “gift,” but I like the version that says “freely.”
Being justified freely by His grace.
This word freely can also be translated “without cause.” If you remember in the Gospels, it spoke of the Jews hating Jesus without cause. Their hatred toward Him had no ground in anything Jesus did. It was purely on their side.
But we are justified by His grace freely—that is, without cause in us. There is nothing in us that brings this about. But this word can also mean “without cost.” It is without cause, but it is also without cost to us.
I don’t know about you, but I hate offers in which people set forth something and say, “You can have this free if you buy this.” I hate that. It’s like, if you really want to give this free, give it to me free. Why do I have to buy that?
Well, God does not give like that. He does not give freely like that and say, “Yes, I’ll give you justification, but I’m going to put you on probation for five years and see how you do.” Some of us might make it a week. Eventually, we would all fall out if it was up to that.
But it is without cost to us. As we are going to see, though, it is at a great cost to God. Though this comes to the believer as free, unmerited favor, it cost God greatly.
Looking at verses 24 and 25, there are really two words that set forth, or explain, what it cost to enable God to declare sinners righteous. One word is redemption, and the other word is propitiation.
Let’s define these very quickly. I’m sure that in our Friday-night times we’ll dwell on these in greater depth. First of all, the word redemption means to loose, release, or deliver. The picture in the Greek was of an individual who was tied up, bound in chains, and then freed, or the chains were loosed from them.
We need to ask the question: What were we redeemed or delivered from? Anybody? Just trying to make sure I don’t lose anybody to sleep here.
The curse of the Law is what I was looking for. Galatians 3:13 tells us that we were redeemed from the curse of the Law.
The blessing of the Law is to live; the curse of the Law is to die. The Law basically said, “Do this and live. If you don’t do this, you die.” So, if you did not fulfill the Law, you would come under its curse.
Thus, in Galatians 3:13, we see that we were redeemed from the curse of the Law. Why? Because it tells us there that Jesus became a curse for us:
Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.
Have you ever wondered why God chose the cross? The Old Testament says that cursed is he who dies on a cross. Jesus, to be made that curse for us—that penalty for us—died on that cross.
Let me read to you a definition. Most of you have probably read Thayer before, his concordance. He gives this definition:
Everywhere in the New Testament this word is used to denote deliverance effected through the death of Christ, from the retributive wrath of a holy God, and the merited penalty of sin.
Let me read it again:
Everywhere in the New Testament this word is used to denote deliverance effected through the death of Christ from the retributive wrath of a holy God and the merited penalty of sin.
Redemption, if you will, is more manward. It is what Jesus did on our behalf. But the next word we look at, propitiation, is more Godward in what was done.
Now let me read a definition of propitiation. This is not my definition, so don’t come up to me afterward and say, “Quote that again.” But I like this meaning:
Propitiation means the satisfying of God’s holy Law, the meeting of its just demands.
Most of you, I think, are familiar with Kenneth Wuest. He has a translation of the New Testament. He translates Romans 3:25 this way:
Whom God displayed publicly as an atoning satisfaction in His blood.
So we see that through Christ’s death on the cross, He met and satisfied the righteous demands of God.
This word propitiation in verse 25 only appears in one other place in the New Testament. It is translated there as mercy seat, and that is in Hebrews 9:5.
At first glance, that sounds a little out of place: “God displayed publicly as a mercy seat in His blood.” But maybe we need to talk for just a moment about this mercy seat.
You recall that when God gave Moses the design of the tabernacle, one of the pieces in there was the ark, the Ark of the Covenant—and no, it has nothing to do with Indiana Jones.
The Ark of the Covenant had within it the tables of stone, which were the Ten Commandments. They were placed into the ark, and then on top of the ark you put this lid, or cover, which was the mercy seat.
Once a year, on the great Day of Atonement, the high priest would go into the Most Holy Place, where the Ark of the Covenant was, and sprinkle blood onto the mercy seat.
Most of us know that these types and shadows in the Old Testament are merely pictures of Christ, and I feel this mercy seat is really a beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You have, as it were, the Law, which is holy and good, and which demonstrates the righteousness of God. You have this Law in the ark, and God, as it were, is above that Law. All who come into His presence are demanded by this Law to keep this Law in order to stand in His presence. But none, as we have already talked about, are able.
So we find that there is this mercy seat that comes in between the Law and God, as it were, between all His demands and God, and covers the believer, or the sinner, from the wrath of God that would come upon him.
Now, the lid, or the mercy seat, in itself would not be sufficient. Even as the Lord Jesus—if I may put it this way—His righteousness for our justification is not sufficient. Let me explain that before you stone me.
The life our Lord Jesus led and lived on this earth was a righteous life. He never once sinned or broke that Law. But that righteousness, which was His alone, does not save us, even as that lid in itself would not come between the Law and God.
Our Lord Jesus Christ’s righteousness merely qualified Him to be the Savior. It merely qualified Him to come in between those demands and God so that He could then, through the giving of His life and the shedding of His blood, satisfy the demands of God for the guilty sinner.
So we see in this mercy seat the picture of our Lord Jesus coming between, as it were, God’s demands and the holy God, with the blood sprinkled—His very own blood—on our behalf, so that we can be forgiven and accepted by God.
Our last point in this section is that justification has been secured in perfect justice. If you look real quick at verses 25 and 26, we see that it says:
Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
It says that this was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed. We see that now God has publicly displayed His righteousness. He has manifested it, as it said in verse 21.
But there might be those who would come along and say, “Well, that’s fine. I can understand that righteousness of God that is available through faith to the believing sinner. But what about the individuals of old that God apparently pardoned? God apparently redeemed before the cross?”
We see again that this righteousness has been witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. There were types and shadows. Even if you go all the way back to Genesis 3:15, the promise was given to Adam after he had sinned that there would be a seed that would come forth.
God began to display in types and shadows what He would do. So, we see that God, in His forbearance, passed over some sins previously committed, but it was all in light of what He would do at one point in time—which was at the cross—where He would publicly display His propitiation, His satisfaction, for the sins of man.
God, in this forbearance, is not unrighteous, simply because with God He sits outside of time. We are in time, but He is outside of time. As far as He was concerned, the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. As far as He was concerned, His method of righteousness, or justification, was a done deal.
Thus, those prior to the cross looked forward. They were given promises, as we will see later with Abraham. They were given a promise looking forward. And so God, as it were, seemingly passing over sins, was actually, through the same principle of faith through a promise made, justifying sinners of the Old Testament.
But now we see that this righteousness at this present time has been demonstrated. God has given that method; it is known to all. And now there is no excuse.
Time is going very rapidly. Let’s go into our next part: justification by faith illustrated, in Romans 4. We’re just going to look at a few verses in here. We’re not going to cover this whole thing. Again, we are just hoping to set forth a few thoughts.
In this section, justification by faith illustrated, we’ll break it down into three parts:
In this first section, justified by faith, not works, we see that Paul sets forth two individuals: Abraham and David. Primarily, we want to focus on Abraham through this section.
Abraham was the one every Jew looked up to, as it were. We talk about mentors now. Abraham would have been, in a sense, a mentor to the Jew. But Paul uses Abraham to speak and set forth this matter of justification by faith illustrated.
Look at Romans 4:1. The NASB says:
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?
I actually like what Kenneth Wuest says in his translation:
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found with reference to the flesh?
Do you see the difference there? What has Abraham found with reference to the flesh? In other words, what good is the flesh? What can it produce as far as toward God?
If it could produce something, then there would be grounds for boasting, wouldn’t there? If we could do anything, we would have grounds to boast before God. But what does the Scripture say here?
It says:
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
But not before God—that’s the key. I think this is where many a man stumbles, in this matter of boasting or pride. How many have rejected this justification that God offers because of pride, because they cannot lay down their pride and say, “There’s nothing in me, nothing I can do whatsoever to gain this acceptance before God”?
Martin Luther could have been so liberated and spared so much agony earlier on if he could have seen this, and not gone through many of the things he had gone through before he saw that the righteous man shall live by faith.
But we see, first of all, that Abraham was not justified by works, because if he had been, he could have boasted. What does the Scripture say? Verse 3:
Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
The story of this is from Genesis 15:6, where God took Abraham out and showed him all the stars in the sky. He said, “Your descendants will be like these stars up here.”
Abraham looked up, and we’ll look at this a little more later. In his latter years, was there anything he could have done to help bring that promise about? Not a thing. But it says that Abraham simply believed God. Abraham simply trusted God. And it was reckoned, or put to his account—into his bank account, if you will—as righteousness.
That’s a beautiful thing. I just want to say as an aside: It’s a beautiful thing when we take God at His word and just trust Him, whether it’s in the matter of justification or any other matter. When we just take God at His word, trust Him, believe Him, and step out in it, I don’t think there’s anything that pleases our God more.
Verse 5 of chapter 4 is an interesting verse. If you look at it just for a moment, it very clearly speaks to us about the type of individuals that God will justify:
But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.
Unless you put yourself into this classification as ungodly, you’re not going to be justified before God. But when we look at ourselves and know ourselves in reality, we’ll gladly put ourselves there.
I realize I’m preaching to the choir right now, because I don’t believe there’s anyone here that doesn’t know the Lord. But it’s a beautiful thing that, ungodly as we are, that’s the only classification in which God will justify that type of person.
Now let’s look at the next section: justification by grace, not law, verses 9 through 17. If you read through this section—and hopefully we’ll dwell on this section a little bit in our Friday nights—you’ll see that faith and grace go together, and law and works go together. Those two are in opposition to each other.
This whole section basically speaks first of all about circumcision. The Jews put a lot of emphasis on circumcision, even as in Christendom today there might be many who put emphasis on baptism, or the Lord’s Table, or perhaps other ordinances.
But Paul sets forth that this circumcision has nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham being declared righteous. In fact, circumcision came about thirteen years after God declared that Abraham was righteous.
I think that’s a beautiful picture there of Christ plus nothing. We often struggle with that. We often have Christ plus this. Our brother opened this morning about the Lord being our portion. He alone is our portion. It’s the Lord; it’s not the Lord plus something.
So we see that circumcision, or an ordinance, has nothing to do with this matter of justification. We also see the Law—the Law which came in some four hundred years after Abraham was declared righteous.
Paul is simply saying that our forefather, he to whom the promise was given, simply believed God, and it was declared to him as righteousness.
To further stamp that, you’ll see in our last section, justification by resurrection power, not human effort—verses 18 through 25—it speaks about Abraham, in hope against hope, believing.
God had made this promise to him that his descendants would be as many as the sand of the sea, or the stars in the sky. Abraham, at that time, it tells us, was about one hundred years old in verse 19, and Sarah’s womb was dead.
We see a beautiful picture here. There was simply nothing Abraham could have done in himself to bring this promise about. It was altogether something God alone could do.
Abraham was totally set aside. As in this matter of justification, we are totally set aside. In fact, there is an interesting verse here. If you look at the last part of verse 17, well, let’s read the whole verse:
As it is written, “A father of many nations have I made you”—in the sight of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
That is a very interesting verse about our God, Who is able to give life to the dead. As we’ll see later, it is speaking of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and of the God Who calls into being that which does not exist.
We already said that justification is an act of God. It is not a process. God doesn’t actually make us righteous; it is a declaration, and it is based on the finished work of Christ.
When we believe, it is as if God calls into being that which does not exist concerning us. We are not righteous in ourselves, but God is declaring us righteous. He is calling forth something.
Of course, God knows the beginning from the end. He knows there will be a time when we are not only justified, but, as it says later in Romans, we will even be glorified.
We see that Abraham had no hope. All hope within himself was dead in this matter of believing the promise. Thus, it is a picture for all humanity. There is no hope in ourselves in this matter of justification.
As it says here in verse 23, it was not written for his sake only that it was reckoned to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be reckoned—speaking of all those who afterward are willing to trust God, who are willing to believe in God, in the fact and in the witness that Jesus was delivered up for our transgressions and was raised because of our justification.
The resurrection of our Lord Jesus is simply the proof that God was satisfied with the death of our Lord Jesus on the cross on behalf of sin. Thus, He raised Him up as proof. He was raised for our justification.
Lastly, we’re about out of time. We want to look at this matter of the blessings of justification in Romans 5. Again, we are only going to look at verses 1 and 2.
Verse 1 says:
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We see that the first blessing, or result, of this matter of justification is peace with God. Let me read something that I came across, which I think beautifully illustrates this.
Peace with God involves, number one, that God has fully judged sin upon Christ, our Substitute.
Number two, that God is wholly satisfied with Christ’s sacrifice, and that He will eternally remain so, never taking up the judgment of our sin again. That ought to make everybody in here shout, “Hallelujah!”
Number three, that God is therefore at rest about us forever. However poor our understanding of truth, however weak our faith, God is now looking at the blood, not our sins. God no longer has anything against us. Indeed, He cannot hold anything against us.
The believer is seen by God as perfect in Christ, accepted in the Beloved. I think William R. Newell said that. I didn’t write down where the quote came from.
So, we have peace with God. That is number one.
Number two: in verse 2 it says:
Through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith.
Some versions use the word access there: access. I love that word, access—to have access to something.
I used to work in a very secure environment. Unless you had certain qualifications, you just did not have access to this area. You were given this little badge to enable you to get into that place, to be able to go in and out of that place with liberty.
Thus is the believer. They have access to God. They have the qualifications because Christ is their righteousness. So now they have access to God, even to the throne of grace.
Number three: in verse 2 we see that it says:
Into this grace in which we stand.
We have access into this grace in which we stand. The third thing is a standing in grace. We have been placed permanently into a position of grace, and thus we have the whole storehouse of God’s grace available to us as believers.
Going forth in that standing of grace, all of God’s dealings with us are according to grace. They are all as His children.
Lastly, we see that we exalt in the hope of the glory of God, in verse 2. This was God’s purpose for man originally: to share His glory.
We see back in Romans 3 that all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But now we see that we are justified freely by His grace. Thus, we can exalt in hope in the glory of God, because that is the end for man: that he would share God’s glory.
That’s God’s heart for the believer. Even as we are justified, we can know that our God will bring us into that glory, the sharing of His glory with Him.
To conclude, let me just throw it out there again: justification means to declare one righteous, not to make one righteous, which is to confuse justification and sanctification.
It is an act; it is not a process. Each believer has the same standing, and this standing is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The believer’s righteousness is Christ Himself.
1 Corinthians 1:30 says:
But of God is He made unto us righteousness.
And Lord, we do just come back to You now. Lord, what can we say? It’s free to us. It was freely given to us, but it was of great cost to You. You had to bruise Your Son. You had to deliver Him up.
But it pleased You, Lord, to do so on our behalf. We thank You, Lord, that You are fully satisfied with that sacrifice of Your Son, and that all who but believe Your word concerning Your Son can stand in this truth of being justified, being declared righteous before a holy God.
We do thank Thee, Lord, and we bless Thee, in Jesus’ name.