It is a "status, rather than a character," says Stevens (The Pauline Theology, 1892, 265); "it bears the stamp of a legal rather than of an ethical conception," and he refers to the elaborate and convincing proof of the forensic character of Paul's doctrine of justification," in Morison, Exposition of Romans, chapter III, 163-200. "His constantly and firmly held view, even more deeply understood later than in 1513-15, that `to be justified without merit' = `to be resurrected (to be born again)' = `to be sanctified' is a pregnant formulation of his Christianity." Paul insists that people are not justified by what they themselves do. The apostle does not take great pains to define the term, although the word usually may be understood from the context in which it is used. He is given a righteousness alien to himself, namely, Christ’s righteousness just as his sins are not imputed or counted to him (2 Cor 5:19). This conversion broke down his philosophy of life, his Lebensgewissheit, his assurance of salvation through works of the law done never so conscientiously and perfectly. James is sure that saving faith transforms the believer so that good works necessarily follow; and he complains about people who say they have faith, but whose lives show quite plainly that they have not been saved. u. Kirche, 1891, 177). In such a case, the Gospel is just as meaningless as if Christ had not risen (1 Cor 15:17). (2) Faith in justification is the God-given instrument or means by which man accepts Gods’ justification of forgiveness in Christ. II 250), writes of Paul’s teaching on justification; “Paul everywhere describes justification as a judicial process, because the conscience of the sinner accused by the divine Law before the tribunal of God, convicted and lying under the sentence of eternal condemnation, but fleeing to the throne of grace, is restored, acquitted, delivered from the sentence of condemnation, is received into eternal life, on account of obedience and intercession of the Son of God, the Mediator, which is apprehended and applied by faith.” According to this, justification signifies “to be pronounced righteous,” or “to be acquitted.”. In the Scriptures God justifies by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith. (7) In case it is lost--and it can be lost, not by venial, but by mortal sin and by unbelief--it can be regained by the sacrament of penance. Faith in God does not cast off Christian works, but is the source and power of the greatest work of all, namely, love. The writer can give no better exhortation than to look unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (12:2), an exhortation in the true spirit of Paul, whose gospel of faith for justification is also summed up in 4:16. All systems of religion and philosophy which use or imply works for salvation result inevitably in wretchedness and tension of doubt. After a thorough study of the concept of justification and related words in the LXX, Dr. Leon Morris concludes: “When we turn to those passages where the term justify occurs, there can be no doubt that the meaning is to declare rather than to make righteous.”. This will be in mind also in the reference to God as presenting Christ "as a sacrifice of atonement (better, "a propitiation") through faith in his blood" ( Rom 3:25 ). Life, Work and Death of the Atoning Savior: It was fundamental in Paul's thinking that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3). And the writer to the Hebrews says plainly that it was "by faith" that Rahab welcomed the spies ( Heb 11:31 ). Everything is, as with Paul (Ephesians 2:7; Titus 3:4), led back to the love of God (1John 3:1), who sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1John 4:10). The demands of the law and condemnation to punishment also are satisfied in Christ and forgiven. The evening before that death occurred, He brings out its significance, perpetuates the lesson in the institution of the Supper (Mark 14:24), and reenforces it after His resurrection (Luke 24:26). Through faith the sinner receives the righteousness which Christ worked on the cross (Rom 3:25, 26). That is rather the content of sanctification. And so we, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith, whereby the Almighty God justified all men that ever have been from the beginning; to whom be glory forever and ever. Pardon is a free forgiveness of past offenses. So much for Paul. The father (who represents God the forgiving Father in heaven) acquits a wayward and guilty son, forgives him and reinstates him in the family without making any demands. "The objective salvation," says Ritschl (p. 158), "which was connected with the sacrificial death of Christ and which continued on for the church, was made secure by this, that it was asserted also as an attribute of the resurrected one," who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification (Romans 4:25). A just man is not pronounced just because he is just, but a sinful man is pronounced just because his sins have been atoned for by the righteousness of Christ. LXX well. Paul speaks of this righteousness in Romans 3:21, “Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, namely the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” The revelation of God’s wrath in the first part of Romans (1:18) is answered by the revelation of God’s saving righteousness in Romans 3. If one asks, what is the Church?, the answer must be “all those who believe in Christ for forgiveness and reconciliation.” This is why Dr. Martin Luther and the other reformers of the 16th cent. (13) Just ification is followed by good works and a life of faith. Please enter your email address associated with your Salem All-Pass account, then click Continue. in his Epistle to the Romans, is (dikaiosis) “justification” (4:25, 5:16) and words closely related such as (dikaios) “just” or “righteous” (dikaiosyne), “righteousness” (dikaiō), “to justify” (dikaioma), “judgment” or “decree” (dikaiōs), “righteously.” Whether Paul speaks of “justification by faith” and/or of the negative opposite impossibility, justification by works, the meaning of the word “justify” by itself is basically declarative or forensic (the word “forensic” always is used in connection with law, courtroom procedure, judgment, or public discussion and deba te). This making faith the only instrument of justification is not arbitrary, but because, being the receptive attitude of the soul, it is in the nature of the case the only avenue through which Divine blessing can come. Justification by faith. Similarly we are justified "by his grace" ( Rom 3:24 ), "by his blood" ( Rom5:9 ), "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" ( 1 Cor 6:11 ), and"in Christ" ( Gal 2:17 ), which are all ways of saying that it is the saving work of Jesus that brings about the justification of sinners. 1. Abraham and other early saints) were glorified and magnified, not through themselves or their own works or the righteous doings which they wrought, but through His (God's) will. Faith alone is the instrument of receiving justification so that works are excluded (Rom 3:28; Eph 2:8-10). (3) The biblical words and phrases that are used to describe and define justification can only mean to declare righteous. Paul cited Abraham to establish the truth that we are justified by faith rather than by works. He knew of the tw… Even without Paul’s use of this passage to support his teachings in Romans 4:3, the statement is as clear as that of David. "The Lord takes his place in court; he rises to judge the people. (9) Justification excludes salvation by works. Cognate: 1347dikaíōsis(a feminine noun derived from 1344/dikaióō, "to approve, justify") – justification (divine approval), emphasizing Christ's full payment of the debt for sin which liberates the believer from all divine condemnation. It was God's good gift that brought justification, his "one act of righteousness" in Christ that effected it ( Romans 5:16 Romans 5:18 ).Another way of putting it is that the saved are saved not because of their own righteousness (they are sinners), but because of the righteousness that is from God and which they receive by faith ( Php 3:9 ; cf. Justification is a reversal of God’s attitude toward the sinner because of his justification by faith in Christ. Justification by faith has been called the apex of all Christian teaching, the central and cardinal truth of Christianity. It mattered to the biblical writers that God is a God is a God of perfect justice, a truth expressed in Abraham's question, "Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?" See Matthew 5:3,6. On the ground of law-keeping, what the modern man would call morality, our hope of salvation has been shattered. Justification by faith restores the sinner to personal relationship with God as Father. All are personally responsible for their sins and thus under condemnation (Rom 3:23; 6:23). Bible Verses about Justification – English Standard Version (ESV). For Paul, “by faith” essentially meant three things: (1) Salvation is without works. The Certainty of Justification. On the principle of works? Baptism pointed to a complete parting with the old life by previous renewal through faith in Christ, which renewal baptism in its turn sealed and announced in a climax of self-dedication to him, and this, while symbolically and in contemporary parlance of both Jew and Gentile called a new birth, was probably often actually so in the psychological experience of the baptized. Paul speaks of God "who justifies the wicked" ( Rom 4:5 ): it is not people who have merited their salvation of whom he writes, but people who had no claim on salvation. It cannot be by the latter, for it exists only where the Spirit has shed it abroad in the heart (Romans 5:5), the indispensable prerequisite for receiving which is faith. It does mean, however, that our sins were declared forgiven even though we were not personally involved. of It was not that he had only outwardly kept the law. Justification by faith as central doctrine of Christianity. Among the truths believed is the mercy of God and that He wishes to justify the sinner in Christ. Eternal life is the blessing secured, but this of course is only possible to one not under condemnation (John 3:36). a forensic term, opposed to condemnation. Paul's own experience cannot be left out of the account. Those acquitted on the day of judgment are spoken of as "the righteous" ( Matt25:37 ; they go into "eternal life, " v. 46 ). This does not mean that the Old Testament writers understood that men were justified simply by their good deeds, for it was always believed that underneath all was the mercy and lovingkindness of God, whose forgiving grace was toward the broken and contrite spirit, the iniquities of whom were to be carried by the Servant of Yahweh, who shall justify many (Psalms 103:8-13; 85:10; Isaiah 57:15; 53:11, and many other passages). Salvation by the way of the cross was so that God would be "just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus" ( Rom 3:26 ). Imputation is both negative and positive: in justification there is non-imputation of sin, and on the other hand, imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Another outstanding example is Paul’s appeal to David in Psalm 32:1-3. The new attitude toward God constituted by justification impels to an unending movement in the service of God and man. What does not come from faith is sin. Justification by faith is not regeneration, if this term is used to describe the entire life of a Christian; nor is it some psychosomatic or physical act which magically transforms an evil person into a righteous person. JUSTIFICATION (δικαίωσις, G1470, justification; δικαιοῦν, to justify). It is a legal term used in the Bible to describe the act of God in which He declares that a person is not guilty. The form is the intensive form of the adverb. All men are not only born in sin (Ephesians 2:3), but they have committed many actual transgressions, which render them liable to condemnation. This is what the Reformation leaders meant when they stressed sola fide, by faith alone, and sola gratia, by grace alone. (2) He is the Instrument or Means, who gave Himself in the incarnate Christ as the once-for-all sacrifice for man’s sin. “But now” in verse 21 forms a great divide, introducing something totally new. No sooner was His person rightly estimated than He began to unfold the necessity of His death and resurrection (Matthew 16:21). See Atonement. Justification and the atonement of Christ. Speaking of 1513-15, Loofs says (p. 697): "Upon these equations (to justify = to forgive, grace = mercy of the non-imputing God, faith = trust in His mercy) as the regulators of his religious self-judgment, Luther's piety rests, and corresponding to them his view of Christianity, and even later" (than 1513-15); and he adds that "to reckon as righteous" (reputari justum) must not be understood with Luther as an opposition "to make righteous," for his "to be justified without merits" in the sense of "to forgive" (absolvi) is at the same time the beginning of a new life: remissio peccati .... ipsa resurrectio. God pronounced all men righteous in Christ but many men will not accept this forgiveness and many may not hear of it (10:14-17). The justified believer is declared free from the demands of the law and all condemnation resulting from sin against the law (3:25; 6:7). The act of faith which thus secures our justification secures also at the same time our sanctification (q.v. Justification (1) Justification is a translation from a natural state to a state of grace. Since God’s justice is righteous and perfect, He will pronounce judgment upon every man according to his works. The declaring or approving as righteous or just (Romans 3:21-30; 4:2-9,22; 5:1,9-11,16-21, etc.). 3. Perhaps the crowning example of the teaching of justification by faith in the OT is the believing patriarch Abraham. All rights reserved. The gifts of God are not against the laws of the soul which He has made, but rather are in and through those laws. For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law” (3:19, 20). d. New Testament, Leipzig,2 1911, 660-63), for Paul faith is the appropriation of the life-power of the heavenly Christ. Justification by faith is the act of God which connects man to the dynamo of all power for all good in the world. The fine passage in Clement of Rome (97 AD, chapter xxxii: "They all therefore (i.e. Faith as a living trust in a personal Saviour for salvation is lacking. Mere acquittal or remission of sin would be tantamount to discharging a criminal from the court room in alienation. and Gr. This appears to be a case of designed ambiguity in Paul. (3) Justification is based upon the atonement of Christ. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Paul did not invent either the words or their contents. (4) Justification is objective or universal. The Old Testament. (8) To get it, to keep or regain it, it is also necessary to believe the doctrines as thus laid down and to be laid down by this Council (see the decrees in any edition, or in Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums, 2. His death as a sacrifice, in which, as Ritschl well says (Rechtfertigung und Versohnung, 3. Even without Paul’s use of the terms in the context of his teaching on justification, the words in the Psalm by themselves clearly teach justification by faith as a declaratory act of God’s forgiveness. Godet says “As to dikaioun (to justify), there is not an example in the whole of classic literature where it signifies: to make just” (Romans, p. 157). Those who have tried to find a difference here between Galatians and Romans have failed. Justification is not the result of the infusion of new life into people, but comes about when they believe. While the time had not arrived for the Pauline doctrine of righteousness, Jesus prepared the way for it, negatively, in demanding a humble sense of sin (Matthew 5:3), inner fitness and perfection (Matthew 5:6,8,20,48), and positively in requiring recourse to Him by those who felt the burden of their sins (Matthew 11:28), to Him who was the rest-giver, and not simply to God the Father, a passage of which Romans 5:1 is an echo. Justification is God's declaration that a sinner is righteous through the work of Jesus Christ. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness (Ge 15:6). Without the substitutionary atonement of Christ God could not forgive the sinner all his sins without being unjust (3:24). A person who is justified is therefore in a state of acceptance with God. The Problem All people are guilty of doing wrong (sinning) against other people and against God. Jesus and justification. Paul selected the examples of David and Abraham from among many others he could have used. Its very important to be in a state of acceptance with God. Holl writes as a liberal, and he quotes a stronger liberal still, Treitschke, as saying that in the 19th century it was the orthodox preachers who proclaimed this doctrine, who built better than the liberals. God says to the sinner, “I do not count your transgressions against you. C.F. Luther is right that religiously we can find no hold except on the Divine act of grace, which through faith in the Divine love and power working in us and for us ever makes us new in Christ. In Christianity, Jesus Christ, the sinless, perfect sacrifice, died in our place, taking the punishment we deserve for our sins. The “elder brother” in the story did not understand the father’s verdict because he was thinking in terms of works, worthiness, and tradition. Paul is saying that Jesus' death and resurrection meant a complete dealing with sins and a perfectly accomplished justification. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight” (Rom 3; 4). (4) Now follows justification itself, "which is not a bare remission of sins, but also sanctification and renewal of the inner man through the voluntary reception of grace and of gifts.". It signifies "were constituted sinners, " "were reckoned as sinners." The objective atonement was accomplished by the death of Christ, but the appropriation of it in justification is possible only if we believe in the saving significance of His death, and we can attain to faith in that only as it is sealed by the resurrection" (Biblical Theology of the New Testament, I, 436-37). The merits of Christ are imputed to the sinner. Therefore he knows no faith which does not bring forth good works corresponding to it. James, on the contrary, is solely considering the subject, in respect to our being justified in the sight of men. In summary, then, justification by faith should include these seven items: 10. But the oneness of God the Father and Christ the Son in a work of salvation is the best guaranty of the Divinity of the latter, both as an objective fact and as an inner experience of the Christian. James thought of justification in the simple and most natural sense of justificatio justi, as the Divine recognition of an actually righteous man, and he thought of it as the final judgment of God upon a man who is to stand in the last judgment and become a partaker of the final soteria (`salvation'). Justification comes from God. This faith is not simply belief in historical facts, though this is presupposed as to the atoning death (Romans 3:25), and the resurrection (Romans 10:9) of Jesus, but is a real heart reception of the gift (Romans 10:10), and is therefore able to bring peace in our relation to God (Romans 5:1). Did the Pauline doctrine fit into the concrete situation made by the facts of Christ mentioned above, and was it the necessary consequence of His self-witness? (1) Justification is a translation from a natural state to a state of grace. He says, "Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" ( Rom 5:19 ). Hunter, Interpreting Paul’s Gospel (1954); J. Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (1955); L. Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (1955); H. Hammann, Justification by Faith in Modern Theology (1957); J. Murray, The Epistle To The Romans, Vol. In this article reference will first be made to the writings of Paul, where justification receives its classic expression, and from there as a center, the other New Testament writers, and finally the Old Testament, will be drawn in. By raising His Son from the dead, God pronounced absolution on the entire human race (1 John 2:2; Rom 4:25). Man no longer need create his own purpose or his right to exist. It was added, of course, on account of transgressions (Galatians 3:19), for it is only a world of intelligent, free spirits capable of sin which needs it, and its high and beautiful sanctions make the sin seem all the more sinful (Romans 7:13). It is not mere pardon. Justification is the declaring of a person to be just or righteous. Theologically, the chief if not the only difference is that James has not yet made the cross of Christ the center of his point of view, while the atonement was fundamental with all Paul's thinking. The sole condition on which this righteousness is imputed or credited to the believer is faith in or on the Lord Jesus Christ. (11) Justification is by faith. In the Scriptures, however, the terms “justification” or “to justify” are used in a special Biblical, forensic, or judicial sense, “to declare or pronounce righteous,” not to make righteous. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” “But now a righteousness from God… has been made known.” Up to this point the message of the book has been bleak and discouraging. After an able historical, survey, Holl concludes (Die Rechtfertigungslehre im Licht der Geschichte d. Protestantismus, Tubingen, 1906, 40-42) that there are two principles thoroughly congenial to modern thought which favor this doctrine, namely, that of the sanctity and importance of personality, the "I" that stands face to face with God, responsible to Him alone; and second, the restoration of the Reformation-thought of an all-working God. Christian theologians have considered justification above all else as forgiveness of sins and have used the two expressions interchangeably. The sentimental view which conceives of God as a gracious old “grandfather” who winks at the sins of His “children,” denies the integrity of the true God and destroys any concept of justification. The reality of this teaching staggers the human mind. In the Gospel God offers the forgiveness of sins gained by Christ to the whole world (John 3:16). All of the grumbling in the world will not alter the situation these words describe: “‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? (1959); H. Schmid, Doctrinal Theology of The Evangelical Lutheran Church (1961); Lutheran World Federation Assembly, A Study Document on Justification (1963); H. Stob, C. Bergenhoff, G. Forell, J. Leith, A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed Traditions III: Justification and Sanctification (1965); H. Huxold, Is Justification For Moderns? In another illustration on this point, in Romans 2:26, Paul says that a man’s uncircumcision is regarded or counted as circumcision. Orr, James, M.A., D.D. We see this, for example, in the words of Jesus who speaks of people giving account on the day of judgment: "by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned" ( Matt 12:37 ; the word NIV translates "acquitted" is the one Paul normally uses for"justified" ). Objective justification does not mean universal salvation, but rather universal grace and forgiveness. Justification is not earned through our own works; rather, we are covered by the righteousness of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8; Titus 3:5). This justification is a one-time act whereby God declares a sinner like you and me to be not only not guilty but perfectly righteous before his high bar of justice. Several important items may be pointed out concerning Abraham as an example of justification by faith: (1) Justification is reckoning or imputing to a man something he did not possess before, namely righteousness before God. If Christ is not God, how could He rise again? Justification is for James a speaking just of him who is righteous, an analytical judgment. We should not understand "were made sinners" in any such sense as "were compelled to be sinners." God does not count man’s sins against him but forgives them and sets him free (Rom 4:7, 8). That we are "justified by his blood" ( Rom 5:9 ) points to the same truth: It is the death of Jesus that makes us right with God. (2) James uses the word "works" as meaning practical morality, going back behind legalism, behind Pharisaism, to the position of the Old Testament prophets, whereas Paul uses the word as meritorious action deserving reward. Beset by difficulties of every kind, his hope remains: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Here the interest is, as Ritschl says (II, 343), in the kingdom of God, but justification proper has reference to the sinner in relation to God and Christ. Being justified by grace, for Christ’s sake, through the Gospel, is being justified by faith alone to the exclusion of works. 15 Bible Verses about Justification. It can be logical (“now as the argument stands”) or temporal (“now, in the present time”). Personal or subjective justification is impossible without universal justification. 5:9, 7:9, 14:6, and other passages, the Bible clearly states that God recognizes that people are divided and identified by race. Justification by faith says that man is not hopeless and helpless in his situation, but that God has heard his cry and offers deliverance. Paul is saying that the whole human race is caught up in the effect of Adam's sin; now all are sinners. We'll send you an email with steps on how to reset your password. If Christ were not man’s substitute, how could God justify a sinner, for then God could justify only the righteous man. He makes much more use of the concept than do the other writers of the New Testament. He himself relies on the promises of the Gospel. Objective and subjective justification. The whole world is by nature corrupt and degenerate. The reminder that the law was ordained by angels (Galatians 3:19) does not mean that it was not also given by God. And especially in this matter of justification, a teaching by Christ is not to be looked for, because it is the very peculiarity of it that its middle point is the exalted Lord, who has become the mediator of salvation by His death and resurrection. But it should be kept that universal or objective justification and subjective justification are really not two separate acts of God. The Lutheran Confessions, for example, teach imputation very clearly: “The second matter in a mediator is, that Christ’s merits have been presented as those which make satisfaction for others, which are bestowed by divine imputation on others, in order that through these, just as by their own merits, they may be accounted righteous. It reminds us of the great sentence of Luther in his preface to the Epistles to the Romans, where he says: "Faith is a Divine work within us which changes and renews us in God according to John 1:13, `who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' But with you there is forgiveness" ( Psalm 130:3-4 ).The end of Micah's prophecy emphasizes that God is a God "who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance" and that he"delights to show mercy" ( 7:18-20 ).