Justification

Summary: (top)

The act of justification is a combination of God promising that believers will not face the punishment that they deserve and declaring instead that He views them as perfect in His sight. This perfection is in fact Jesus' perfection - God sees believers as having Jesus' righteousness - and this all happens through faith, which itself is a gift of God to the believer and allows the whole process of salvation to be by grace, through faith and not by works.

Introduction: (top)

In the process of salvation an individual must hear and understand the gospel message, and must respond to that with a prayer of repentance and faith. Justification is where God responds to that prayer and faith, declaring the individual to be perfect in His sight and promising that they will not face the punishment they deserve for their sins.

It was the understanding of this truth in its entirety that led Martin Luther to begin the Protestant Reformation, absolutely intent upon defending the Bible's claim that salvation is by faith and not by works.

The Biblical Teaching:

God Declares Us to be Not Guilty in His Sight: (top)

In declaring us to be 'not guilty' in His sight, God assures us that we will not face the penalty for our sins that we justly deserve - we are no longer condemned.

"David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.'" (Rom. 4:6-8)
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1).

God Declares Us to be Righteous in His Sight: (top)

However, merely being 'not guilty' in God's sight does not make us righteous in His sight. To accomplish this, God imputes Christ's righteousness to us - that is, God looks at us and sees the perfection of His Son instead of the depravity of our sin. In this way, those who are saved are righteous in God's sight.

"It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." (1 Cor. 1:30)
"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Phil. 3:7-9)
"But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe" (Rom. 3:21-22).

In The Above Two, God Justifies Us: (top)

The word, "justify" means "to declare righteous". We read in Luke 7:29 as an example that "...all the people when they heard, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John." (ASB). Now the "justify" used here is similar to the "justify" used in passages speaking of the justification of believers, and is clearly referring to the people seeing that God was righteous - for they certainly didn't make God righteous. In a similar way, we are not made righteous by God, but are viewed as righteous, and treated as such, by Him. In fact, justification is wholly external to the believer, and centred instead on God - it is the point at which He promises "no condemnation" and views the repentant sinner as righteous. Once a Christian, God does work in the believer to help them become more godly, but this is not included in the process of justification. In justifying believers, God views them as righteous - He does not make them righteous.

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." (Rom. 3:28)
"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand" (Rom. 5:1-2)
"So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith." (Gal. 3:24)

This is Done Through Faith: (top)

It must be emphasised that it is through faith that we are justified - it is not earned by faith. If it were, then it would mean a form of salvation by merit, which is not the case. Rather, faith is the means by which we are justified, so that those blessed with great faith as compared to others who merely have faith to be saved, are not any more saved or justified than the others.

People may ask, 'why is salvation through faith?' 'Why not through the love or grace of an individual instead?' (for example). This is answered with an understanding that faith is the one characteristic personal to each individual that by definition is reliance on someone or something else and therefore cannot be considered to promote that individual with inner-merit. For the one with great faith is one who understands how totally lacking they are and so rely more thoroughly on God. If salvation were through the love or grace of an individual instead, or anything else for that matter, it would be based on some characteristic of that individual, and then it would be based to some extent on merit. No, salvation must be by faith, for faith is reliance on God and is the opposite of relying on yourself, and this is the only way it can be, because indeed we cannot save ourselves and must rely totally on Christ's offer for salvation.

Finally, faith is a gift from God so that salvation is by no means the result of anything we can do. In this way it is impossible for salvation to be by works or any other form of merit.

"However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." (Rom. 4:5)
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." (Eph. 2:8-9)