Justification

How Should Man Be Just with God?

Long ago Job asked the question every honest heart eventually asks: how should man be just with God? (Job 9:2). If God is perfectly holy and I am not, how can I ever stand before Him?

Scripture makes the problem sharper. God says that the judge who justifieth the wicked is an abomination to the LORD (Proverbs 17:15). Yet Paul announces that God justifieth the ungodly (Romans 4:5). How can both be true? The answer is the cross. There God punished sin in full, so that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Romans 3:26).

Justification is the courtroom side of salvation. We believe that the moment a sinner trusts Christ, God forgives all his sins and declares him righteous, crediting to him the perfect righteousness of His Son. It is God's verdict, not our achievement. Nothing needs to be added to it, and nothing can overturn it.

The Righteousness of God, by Faith

Romans gives the fullest explanation of justification in Scripture. Paul first proves that the whole world is guilty before God (Romans 3:19–20). Then he turns to the good news.

Justified Freely

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 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; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”ROMANS 3:21–26 · KJV

Every phrase counts. This righteousness comes without the law, witnessed by the Old Testament and now revealed in Christ. It comes by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, with no difference between Jew and Gentile. We are justified freely, at no cost to us; by his grace, God's undeserved favor; through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the price He paid. And all of it is received through faith in his blood.

Abraham and David

Paul calls two witnesses. Abraham, the father of Israel, believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6). David, the king after God's own heart, sang of the blessed man whose sin is covered (Psalm 32:1–2), and Paul explains that song: it describes the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. If anyone could have been justified by works, it was Abraham, yet he had nothing to boast of before God (Romans 4:2). Every person in history who has been justified has been justified the same way: by faith.

Before the Rite

When exactly was Abraham justified? Paul answers: Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision (Romans 4:10). Genesis 15:6 comes before Ishmael was born (Genesis 16:16), and Ishmael was thirteen when Abraham was circumcised (Genesis 17:24–25). Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised (Romans 4:11). In the same way, baptism, the Lord's Supper, church attendance, and generosity do not justify anyone. They are acts of faith in people who are already justified.

Peace, by His Blood

Notice the tense: being justified. Justification is not a process we hope to finish but a verdict God has already given. Its first fruit is peace with God: once we were His enemies, and now the war is over. Its ground is his blood. Christ's death is the payment, and His resurrection is God's receipt, for He was raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25).

The Great Exchange

Here is the heart of it. God placed our sin on Jesus, and He places Jesus' righteousness on us. Paul could say that, touching the righteousness which is in the law, he had been blameless (Philippians 3:6). Yet he counted all of it loss so that he might be found in Christ, wearing a righteousness that was not his own.

Who Shall Condemn?

“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”ROMANS 8:33–34 · KJV

Because God Himself has justified, no accuser can bring a charge that sticks. Christ died, rose, and intercedes for us. The case is closed.

The Language of the Courtroom

Justification is a legal word. To understand it, we have to step into a courtroom.

Imputation moves in two directions. Our sins were imputed to Christ, who bore them in our place (Isaiah 53:6). And Christ's righteousness, His perfect obedience, is imputed to everyone who believes: by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Romans 5:19). Paul sets this beside Adam. Through Adam's disobedience, sin and death entered the race, and we inherit his fallen nature (Romans 5:12). We do not believe God automatically charges every person with the guilt of Adam's own act; we are guilty through our own sin. But Christ's righteousness is credited to all who believe. See The Fall and Its Effects.

Justification and Sanctification

Justification is not God making us good. It is God declaring us righteous. Sanctification is God's work of making us holy, and it follows justification in every believer. Both are gifts of grace, but they must never be confused.

• A verdict and a process. Justification happens in a moment; sanctification lasts a lifetime (2 Corinthians 3:18).
• Outside us and within us. Justification is Christ's righteousness credited to us; sanctification is the Spirit's work in us.
• Complete and growing. Every believer is equally and fully justified. The newest believer is as justified as the oldest saint. Sanctification grows and varies.
• Root and fruit. We do good, not to be justified, but because we are justified (Ephesians 2:10).

Faith That Works

Paul says a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law (Romans 3:28). James says by works a man is justified, and not by faith only (James 2:24). Do the apostles contradict each other?

They do not. They answer different questions, against different errors, and they use one word in two senses.

• Different questions. Paul asks how a guilty sinner is made right with God. James asks how anyone can tell real faith from a dead profession. Paul faces people trusting their works; James faces people trusting a faith that never works.
• Different kinds of faith. James's opponent says he has faith but has no works, and James asks, can faith save him? (James 2:14), meaning that kind of faith. It is the faith of devils, who also believe, and tremble (James 2:19).
• Different senses of justified. Paul means declared righteous before God. James means shown to be righteous: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works (James 2:18). Jesus used the word the same way: wisdom is justified of all her children (Luke 7:35).
• The same Abraham. James points to Abraham offering Isaac on the altar (James 2:21). But Abraham had been declared righteous in Genesis 15, years before Isaac was even born. The offering did not make him righteous. It fulfilled the earlier verdict by showing it was true (James 2:22–23).

So both are true. Can you be saved by faith alone, without works? Yes. Can you have authentic faith that never produces works? No. We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone.

Trent and the New Perspective

Two other accounts of justification deserve a careful hearing: the Roman Catholic teaching defined at the Council of Trent, and the New Perspective on Paul.

The Council of Trent

Trent's sixth session issued its Decree on Justification in January 1547. It taught that justification is “not only a remission of sins” but also the sanctification and renewal of the inner person (chapter 7). God's grace is poured into the soul, so that the justified are not only declared righteous but made righteous. Baptism, “the sacrament of faith,” is its instrumental cause. Trent insists that nothing before justification merits it (chapter 8), but it teaches that the justified grow in justification through good works (chapter 10), and that grace lost through mortal sin is regained through the sacrament of Penance (chapter 14). Its canons condemn anyone who says the sinner is justified by faith alone (canon 9) or by the imputation of Christ's righteousness alone (canon 11), and anyone who calls good works “merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained” (canon 24).

Catholics hold this view because they believe God's verdict must match what is within: God would not call righteous someone who is not. They read James 2:24 as proof that works justify, and they see the regenerating power of Baptism in John 3:5 and Titus 3:5.

Our Answer to Trent

• God justifies the ungodly. Paul does not say God justifies those He has first made godly. He justifieth the ungodly (Romans 4:5). The tax collector who could only cry, God be merciful to me a sinner, went down to his house justified that same day (Luke 18:13–14).
• The verdict is finished. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God (Romans 5:1). What God has already declared does not grow by degrees.
• The righteousness is Christ's. We are made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21), not having mine own (Philippians 3:9). If our standing rested on righteousness poured into us, we would have to be sanctified before we could be justified. Scripture puts it the other way around.
• Grace and merit do not mix. If works preserve or increase justification, grace is no longer grace (Romans 11:6). Trent condemns the very thing Scripture teaches: good works are the fruit of justification, not its cause (Ephesians 2:10).

See the full comparison, How is a sinner made right with God?

The New Perspective on Paul

In 1977 E. P. Sanders argued in Paul and Palestinian Judaism that first-century Judaism was not a religion of earning salvation. Israel, he said, entered the covenant by God's grace and stayed in it by obedience, a pattern he called covenantal nomism. In 1982 James D. G. Dunn gave the movement that followed its name, the New Perspective on Paul. Dunn argued that when Paul rejects the works of the law, he chiefly means the badges that marked Jews off from Gentiles: circumcision, food laws, and the Sabbath. N. T. Wright, the movement's best-known voice, teaches that justification is God's declaration of who belongs to His one covenant family of Jews and Gentiles, more about the church than about how a sinner is saved. He rejects the traditional teaching that God imputes Christ's righteousness to the believer, and he teaches that a future justification will publicly affirm, on the basis of the whole Spirit-led life, the verdict faith receives now.

The New Perspective sees some things truly. Paul's Gospel does make Jew and Gentile one family (Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:14–16), and the Judaism of Paul's day spoke much of God's mercy. But it cannot account for all Paul says.

• Paul's target is wider than badges. To him that worketh the reward is counted as a debt (Romans 4:4). That is about earning, not about ethnic markers. God chose Jacob not of works, before he had done any good or evil (Romans 9:11). And Paul tells Gentile believers they are saved not of works (Ephesians 2:9) and not by works of righteousness which we have done (Titus 3:5).
• The problem is guilt. The law brings the knowledge of sin and leaves the whole world guilty before God (Romans 3:19–20). Justification answers condemnation (Romans 8:33–34), not merely exclusion.
• Self-righteousness was real. Paul's countrymen went about to establish their own righteousness (Romans 10:3), and Jesus told a parable to some which trusted in themselves that they were righteous (Luke 18:9).
• One family is the fruit. Jew and Gentile are one in Christ because both are justified the same way: ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:26).

A Short History

Justification by faith was never lost from Christ's churches. In 1517 Martin Luther, an Augustinian friar and professor at Wittenberg, challenged the sale of indulgences (the Ninety-five Theses). His study of Romans and Galatians led him to proclaim to much of Europe that sinners are justified by faith alone, and Rome answered at Trent. Baptists hold justification by faith alone not because Luther preached it, but because Paul wrote it.

Standing in Grace

Justification is not a doctrine for theologians only. It is the ground you stand on every day (Romans 5:2).

Peace Is a Fact, Not a Feeling

Your feelings rise and fall. Your standing before God does not. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, and that peace is permanent. A child of God will never become His enemy again.

Answer the Accuser

Satan is the accuser of our brethren (Revelation 12:10), and your own conscience will add its voice. Answer both with God's verdict. The prophet Zechariah saw Joshua the high priest standing in filthy garments, with Satan at his right hand to resist him. The Lord rebuked the accuser, took away the filthy garments, and clothed Joshua with change of raiment (Zechariah 3:1–5). That is what God has done for you. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

Stop Adding

If you are working to make yourself acceptable to God, you are working to pay a debt that will never be paid. Christ has paid it. Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). Everyone who turns from trusting himself to trust Christ alone as Saviour is saved, by grace through faith, not of works (Ephesians 2:8–9). Anyone trusting in faith plus works is not trusting Christ alone (Galatians 5:4).

Live as One Who Is Justified

Count your blessings. Your sins are forgiven, you have peace with God, and you are His child forever. Be grateful for grace and move on. Sin has already been defeated, so do not let it defeat you. Serve God out of gratitude, not to earn what He has already given.

Explaining It to Someone

1. God is a righteous Judge, and we are guilty. The whole world is guilty before God (Romans 3:19; Romans 3:23).
2. God cannot simply overlook sin. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
3. Jesus took our place. Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). God made Him to be sin for us, so that we might be made righteous in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
4. God declares righteous everyone who believes. It is by faith alone, not by works (Romans 3:28; Romans 4:5).
5. The verdict is final. The one who is justified has peace with God, and there is no condemnation for him (Romans 5:1; Romans 8:1).