This tract focuses upon some of the common ideas people come up with in response to being told that they are guilty sinners in God’s sight, which they think that God should accept as legitimate extenuating circumstances. After citing some of them, the reader is asked whether he thinks the same sort of things, or whether he has an extenuating circumstance of his own he plans to offer. He is then told how that Romans 2:12-29 shows that there are no legitimate extenuating circumstances in God’s sight. Therefore there is no way by which he can hope to mitigate his guiltiness before God. He is plainly told on the basis of Romans 2:12-29 that he is a guilty sinner in God’s sight, with no excuse to offer in his defense. The appeal is then made to him to accept God’s gracious offer to have all charges against him dropped and for him to be justified in God’s sight.
 

'Extenuating Circumstances' is a legal expression. It refers to special circumstances affecting you that you can offer in your defense in the hopes that they might lessen the seriousness of a crime with which you have been charged. Hence when someone pleads extenuating circumstances, in essence he is saying that there is something unique to his situation that makes it so that the law should not judge him so harshly, or judge him the same as others.

Now pleading extenuating circum-stances is not only something people do when they are brought up on charges in a human court of law. It is also something people commonly do when they read in The Bible that God charges them with being guilty sinners in His sight. In an effort to offer an excuse in their behalf, or show themselves to be unjustly accused, people come up with all sorts of ideas that they hope will serve for them as extenuating circumstances.

Some Common Pleas

There are two main types of extenuating circumstances people think of and commonly offer: negative ones and positive ones.

On the negative side it is not uncommon to hear things like:

— I didn't know any better. If I had known I was sinning, I wouldn't have done it.

— I wasn't brought up in a Christian home. So I didn't have that advantage.

— No one ever taught me about God's law. Therefore I didn't know what was expected of me. I can't be held responsible for that.

On the positive side people often say:

— I've been a good church-goer all my life. Surely that counts for something.

— I've believed in God all my life and I've done my best to be good to my fellow man.

— I have a Christian heritage. I'm not some sort of idolatrous heathen.

Now How About You

God has also charged you with being a guilty sinner in His sight. And as such His wrath is against you just as Romans 1:18 declares.

¹⁸ For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; (Romans 1:18)

In view of this, do you also have something to say for yourself in extenuation? Do you hope that maybe one of the previously mentioned pleas might work for you? Or do you have one of your own to offer up in your defense?

No Extenuating Circumstances

As desirous as any of us might be to plead some extenuating circumstance, the truth of the matter is that there are none. And God makes this clear in Romans 2:12-29. There He shows that it makes no difference whether one is a Gentile or a Jew; nor what circumstance may be thought to be unique to either one; no one can claim any extenuating circumstance to mitigate their guilt in God's sight.

Charges Dropped

Though it is impossible to mitigate your guilt as a sinner in God's sight, it is possible to have all charges against you dropped and for you to be justified in God's sight. And not only is this far better, it is just what God is both able and willing to do for you, if you will let Him.

God is able to do this for you because of what His Son — the Lord Jesus Christ — did for you when He died in your place on the cross of Calvary.

²⁴ Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

²⁵ Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

²⁶ To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:24-26)

By dying in your place the Lord Jesus Christ took upon Himself the debt and penalty of your sins. He functioned as your substitute-Redeemer. This means that He assumed your guiltiness before God and suffered the punishment for your sins for you. What you could not do for yourself, He did for you. And in so doing He completely satisfied God's Justice concerning the penalty for your sins, and He made it so that God can now freely forgive you all of your sins and justify you in His sight. As Romans 4:25 says, the Lord Jesus Christ "was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification."

The only condition that God has placed upon you in order for you to receive His gift of forgiveness and justification in His sight, is that you believe in the total sufficiency of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you. As the Apostle Paul says, God is "just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." (Romans 3:26)

To believe in someone means to completely depend upon him and his ability to do something for you that you cannot do for yourself. And this is exactly what it means to "believe in Jesus."

Have you believed in Jesus as your all-sufficient Savior? If not, why not do so right now. Then instead of being "guilty before God," the following will be true of you: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:" (Romans 5:1) — K. R. Blades