The Justification of sinners

5 Articles that are essential to the New Testament teaching on Justification



I. Justification, in the context of the New Testament's theology of salvation, is metaphorical language rooted in the background of that law-court. Because of this, the doctrine of justification will not be understood properly unless seen in this kind of setting. Certainly then, righteousness/Justification carries a forensic or legal meaning. Paul expresses this clearly in the climax of his description of sinful human beings at Rom 3:19-20 "... every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight... ". The imagery of mouth's being stopped pictures human beings, in the courtroom of God, trying to voice a defense for their case but realizing they have no basis by which to do so. The atmosphere of God's courtroom will be full of silence because human beings will be rightly declared to be what they are in truth and sentenced to what they deserve. Second, Paul describes them as guilty/accountable before God, clearly picturing God as a judge to whom these human beings must appear to give an account for their lives. It is His decision whether they stand guilty or innocent (this is clear from the word "sight"). Third, and following, the reference to no flesh being justified in His sight gives us this law-court setting where God's sight is His judgement or His examination of their case according to His law, the standard/norm of judgement. In Rom 2:13-16 Paul again reiterates this language by saying "... for the hearers are not just in the sight of God, but the doiers of the Law will be justified...", showing that our appearance before God's sight (which is clearly expressing His judging examination of their status) is determinative of whether we are justified or condemned (Rom 8:34). Moreover, a couple verses after this, Paul locates this appearance before God's sight to be in full action ".. in the day when God judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ... " (2:16). If we construct a whole picture by putting all these pieces together, we should yield something as the following: All human beings, at a coming day, will appear before God to be examined under the scrutiny of His justice. The individual outcomes of this judgement will be according to whether the human is innocent or guilty; which will be life or death.

It is clear, then, that the act of God justifying human beings is deeply rooted in the method by which He governs the universe. God, having created human beings, relates to them according to His Law, and therefore assumes the position of being Judge over all, to whom all must given an account. Therefore, Justification speaks of coming to maintain a right relationship with God as Judge, Creator, and Friend. God has created human beings in such a way that they are accountable to him. They are not isolated, loose, and indepenent individuals who merely take up a bit of space in the far corners of God's universe, left entirely to themselves. They are special creatures made by the hand of God, for Him and His glory. They do not belong to themselves, they are His. And therefore, they are accountable to Him for how they live their lives. Those human beings which maintain conformity to the required standard of living are those whom God would recognize as just or righteous in His sight, and those who breach that norm are recognized as unjust, unrighteous, sinful, and therefore condemned. And since, as was mentioned, the respective consequences for these statuses are that of life and death, it becomes a subject of such importance that it puts everything else under it with regard to salvation. If I am a creature made by God, and if I am accountable to Him for how I live my life, and if my well-being or ill-being turn on whether I've kept His Law or have not kept His Law, then the question "How do I stand before God"? becomes the most important question that anyone can ask in the world. If I have breached the required norm that God the creator has set in place for me, then I do not stand righteous in His sight, but rather am accountable for my offenses against Him, and will stand condemned in His sight. Since I am inextricably under these circumstance, the question "How can I be just in the sight of God" , again, becomes the most important question I can ever ask. What will I do? Where will I find refuge?

Before these questions can be answered, there must be deflections against those solutions that man, by nature, are radically quick to turn to. Since the stakes are so high, that of life or death, men will not sit well under the recognition that he/she is under the condemnation of death, and therefore will, in more ways then one, attempt to deflect the truth of this . Some might imagine that their good deeds will be compared with their evil deeds, and that they will be rewarded or punished based on the outweighing of these actions. Or that good works done after the evil deeds will somehow atone and cover the previously committed evil works. Or that by sincere repentance and confession, they will escape the consequences for their wickedness. Many other deflections may arise in the heart and mind of sinful man.

However, the Law of God, by nature, does not acknowledge reformation or repentance. If a man steals or murders, the Law condemns him. The Law only functions to make known the required norm and is utilized to gauge whether a man has kept or broken them. If a man fails to comply with the demanded norm, there is no hope of being jutsified by that Law, for the condemnation is gives is graven in stone. History cannot be folded or undone. Under the goverment of God's justice, strict Law demands nothing else but perfect excellence. The Law refuses to be appeased by repentance. It enforces every single one of it's commands and every requirement of God, the Supreme Ruler. The Law has no feelings or consciouness. At the end of the day, it is a standard for judgement, and that is it. Sinners may not be happy with it, but it can function in no other way. This is how Paul can logically say that commands bring death (Rom 7:10-13). It is a mechanism that remains outside of sinners, and only accuses them of breaking commands, and supplies the proper sentencing, that death, over and over again. It is a hopeless situation in the circumstance of sinners.

The underlying truth of this discussion, according to the apostle Paul, has been testified in the Holy Scriptures. Paul, in more than once place, insists that the Scripture itself pronounces mankind to be under the condemning power of sin (Rom 3: 10-18; Gal 3:22-24). If it is true that the Scripture has always demonstrated the universality of human beings as sinners, then it must follow that the Scripture itself also, by logical sequence, testifies that righteousness or Justification could never be attained through obedience to the Law of God.

Because of this seemingly hopeless situation, human beings can either simply accept the dire misery of their condition, deny that such a thing is even true, or seek to find refuge. There is also something worse than the first two alternatives, and which is extremely common in our day and age. And that is to suppos that the demands of God are so low that athough they are guilty sinners, they can still meet what the Law requires. But Paul works on the axiomatic principle that the Law knows no such relaxation, especially when he says "Cursed is the man who does not continue to obey all things which are prescribed in the book of the Law, to do them always" (Gal 3:10). If one seeks to be justified by the Law, he/she must come to terms with the inflexible demand of perfect obedience (Gal 5:1-4). Paul reads the method of being justified by the Law to be announced by Moses way back in the Old Testament --> " Only the man who does them shall live by them" (Gal 3:10-14).

It is under these premises that Paul's understands salvation as deeply rooted in the fact that human beings must stand righteous under the judgement of God (Rom 1:17b). And this is why Paul can speak of God's action in endowning human beings with righteousness as the power of God unto salvation, precisely because by possessing this righteousness, human beings are delivered from death to everlasting life (Rom 1:17; 5:21). But, coming back to the thought of justification terminology carrying legal or forensic meaining, we see again that in the act of justification, God examines the case of a particular party and based on it’s conformity to His required Law, renders the verdict of “Justified” over that party, and they are consequently set free to live. However, when He confronts those who are not just in His sight, the consequences are penal, the sentence of eternal death (Rom 2:7-11).


II. Since the objects of God's justification are sinners, the grounding cause or basis for this legal declaration is not found in the sinner’s own case brought before God. Under God’s judgment, the only outcome that results from such an examination is the declaration of condemnation. It is by breaching the required Law of God that labels them a “sinner”, and therefore they possess no grounding merit for being declared just, but rather possess the grounding demerit for being declared condemned. When a sinner is justified, the basis for such a decision cannot be a result from God’s sight on the sinner or from anything merited on the sinner’s part, but rather God makes this declaration concerning the sinner on the basis of something else, outside the sinner. However, God cannot justify a man unless he is righteous. Therefore, we can properly say that God justifies sinners because they somehow claim to a righteousness (status of being right/just) which is not their own, but is alien or foreign to them, yet comes to be theirs to possess and present before God. And on top of that, this foreign righteousness which human beings have access to possess cannot have a price to be paid for on the part of the human being. Therefore, we can properly state with the Reformation tradition, that this righteousness comes to human beings out of the principle of free grace. And, as Paul makes clear in his epistle to Rome, the gospel's power to save is founded upon the very fact that God is indeed supplying the very gift-kind of righteousness (Rom 3:21; 5:17) which human beings need, to replace their unrighteousness (Rom 1:18), so that they might be delivered from His wrath (Rom 5:9) and stand righteous before Him (Rom 1:17).


III. As previously stated, God does not acknowledge the merit of the sinner to be the basis for His declaring them just before Him, but we also know that God does not lower or relax the standard of His justice in the process. It is necessary to say that if God does indeed justify sinners, He must do so in accordance with His justice. How can such a thing occur? It would seem that, since sinners stand on their own and bring their personal cases before God, that they ar barred to the sentence of divine condemnation. If the situation remains under these circumstances, then it is true, they are without hope. If all sinners have is the Law of God to be judged by, then there is simply no alternative for God than condemning them. But God has done something, though in keeping with His justice, that is providing an alternative for their legal stance other than His Law. Now, God rather turns to His own action in the work of His Son Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, and it is this merit which forms the basis, ground, and effecting cause for declaring sinners as just. As for the definition for this "work", it is bound up and within the sacrificial-death and resurrection of Jesus (Rom 4:25; 5:9, 16; 8:32-33), which also can be termed His obedience (Rom 5:19). We read that many are made righteous before God on the basis of this One Man's obedience, in contrast to Adam's disobedience. Sometimes we construe the crucifixion of Jesus as an event entirely on the will of Jesus or entirely on the will of God the Father. But the stress that Paul would apply is that both are at work together securing the provision of righteousness for sinners. But it is equally true that Jesus' self-giving of Himself was a command issued by the Father. It took hard and agonizing work to give Himself to the pain of death and the abandonment of God. We do not often view Jesus' death as an act of obedience. It was excrutiating torture in as much as it was sweet obedience which pleased God. And everything hinges on this One Man, Jesus Christ, and His obedience to God for the justification of sinners. Futhermore, to the question of how this provides the merit for the declaration of justification over sinners, or in what way does His obedience make many righteous, I will answer plainly.

God has imposed death to be the fixed penalty for all and any sin, as is confirmed by Paul, "The wages of sin is death…" (Rom 6:23), "…sin entered the world, and death through sin…" (Rom 5:12), "… those who practice such things [sin] are deserving of death" (Rom 1:32). Yet, we also read that Jesus, who was righteous ( ) and who had no acquaintance with sin (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 7:26), is nevertheless delivered over the death (1 Cor 15:3-4). No matter how extensive one chooses to elaborate on this incongruity, the logic remains basically the following: Jesus died, not as the penal result of his own sins, but for the sins of others. Slightly extended, Jesus did not face death as the result of his own sinning, but because of His voluntary bearing of the death that was due to others as a result of their sinning. His death was their death.
Now, having said this, it should be remembered that death is the penalty that is imposed by God, under His own judicial sentencing. Therefore Jesus died under the punishment inflicted by God. In this scenario, God necessarily judged Jesus as He would a sinner. If, as the Scripture says, He bore our sins in His own flesh on the tree (1 Pet), then God reckoned the legal-consequences for the guilt of these sins to be Jesus' own. Under these circumstances, God properly judged the sinless Jesus as though he had (legally) sinned and sentenced Him to the penalty of death, and He died.

Now, having said this, it must be observed that when God judicially pronounced Jesus as condemned and sentenced to death, He did not find the legal basis for such a judgement in Jesus' own merit or anything Jesus did Himself, but rather excercised this judgement on the basis of something outside of Jesus, alien and foreign to Him --> our sin. In other words, when God judged Jesus as condemned and penalized Him with death, He did not look upon Jesus' own merit, but rather looked upon the merit that was amassed by sinners, and reckoned what was due for them to Jesus.

If we can store the logic of how Jesus was declared and judged condemned by God in our memory, then when we gravitate to discover the logic of how sinners are declared righteous, it will be made simple and plain (yet amazing). In the act of God justifying a sinner, it was correctly noted that God does not find the meritorious basis for such a declaration in the sinner. This fact simply cannot be stressed enough (Rom 3:20; 28). God must find something outside of the sinner (extra nos), that is other to the sinner, and yet keeping within the confines of His justice. God finds the meritorious cause for justifying sinners when He looks away from what the sinner has to offer and reckons the obedence of Jesus Christ vicariously to them (in behalf of them), so that while God maintains His justifying judgment in respect to the sinner, he finds the basis for this judgment irrespective (outside) of the sinner (The blood-shedding of Jesus- Rom 5:9). It is in the death of Jesus that God finds proper satisfaction of His justice in behalf of the unjust. God's attention is taken into to His own work in offering His Son to the cross. This becomes the merit from which and on the basis which He declares sinners to be justified. I don't think we can assess any other meaning when the apostles says "... having now been justified by His blood... " (Rom 5:9) or "... and are justified...through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiating sacrifice in His blood to be received through faith..." (Rom 3:24-25). The blood of Jesus (another way of referring strictly to His death) makes a propitiation, which then works to liberate human beings from sin's guilt.


There is more to be said about Christ's vicarious death. Vicarious is a word whose concept is that same as that of substitution. In other words, He took the place of guilty sinners and by this took their penalty by dying. We could hardly see anything else given the statements of Paul: "For when we were still without strength, at the right time, Christ died for the ungoldy" (Rom 5:6) , "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8), "Christ our Passoever, was sacrificed for us... " (1 Cor 5:7), "... the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20). Over and over again we read that both God the Father and Son acted together in offering His body as a sacrificial-death in behalf of the powerless to make atonement for their sin.

It is by this act of substitution that God can acquit the guilty. God interprets the destruction of human life (penalty for sin) and the resurrection of the dead that occurred in the One Man Jesus, as done in behalf of sinners. In this way, God calculates Jesus' death for sin to render the legal verdict over sinners from being that of guilty and condemned to being not guilty and justified. The condemnation (death) which rightly belonged to them is held to someone else, against a sacrifical victim, Jesus, and He, rather than they, fell victim to the violence and curse of death, such that they now are delivered from having to face it themselves.

By this substitutionary death, the execution of their [sinners] condemnation is viewed as complete, just by a person besides them [Jesus]. In other words, since Jesus bore our sin and died for them, the full condemnation for those sins [which is death] was fully executed in His death, thereby completely and forever excusing them from the liability to the judgement of condemnation. We stand now rather justified. By virtue of Jesus' death, all charges worth condemning us are met with justice in His dying body, completely aside from us, thereby dropping those charges against us forevermor (Rom 8:31-34).

The underlying rational here is that God imputes the crucifying and resurrecting work of Jesus Christ, not as something done on an individual level, but also to be substitutionary (for others), and on this basis imputes the same punitive work He sees in the dying Jesus with respect to us, such that, God now considers us to be both dead and alive from the dead because Christ (who stood in our place) is both dead and alive from the dead. Believers are those who are in Christ Jesus. They are so united to Christ in such a way that what He did in their behalf, they did as well; He died, they died; He was buried, they were buried; He was raised, they were raiesd; He sat at the right hand of God, they are sitting with Him. This theme is well too complex to have it spelled out in the space given here. But given the small premise, divine justice is met out on the One Man Jesus Christ. Yet, because this One Man acted in our behalf, it can be imputed that we have divine justive met out on us as well. Paul can say without hesitation that he, although still a living human being, nonetheless has "... been crucified with Christ... " (Gal 2:20-21). Do you see? Even though it was One Man who was crucified under the judgement of God on sin and risen unto everlasting glory, the same profile can be read concerning "all" who are "in Christ", since Jesus acted vicariously and representatively for them. The condemnation on sin and the entrance of the resurrection of the Just has already happened in the dying and rising body of Jesus Christ. Therefore, whoever is in Christ is justified from all sin (Rom 6:7) and begins to live in the resurrection life of the age to come, both in the here and now.

We could go on in this sort of theme, but all this is to belabor the point that when God judges His elect, He does not do so with eyes on them, but rather with His eyes on His crucified and Risen Son as the vicarious representative seated at His own right hand to cast the verdict of them being forever justified (Rom 8:32-34). His resurrection is followed by His ascension to the right hand of God. At this place, He lives to make intercession for God's people. And even here, God's interpretation of His elect is figured in their Mediator, Jesus Christ. It is on this basis that they remain justified. Because the crucified and exalted Jesus holds both the position of absolute power and mediation, His death forever bears for the status of those whom He died for.

IV For sinners to become beneficiaries of Christ's work and the objects of divine justifying, they are required to exercise saving faith in Jesus Christ. This faith consists of abandoning all efforts to obtain righteousness and acceptance with God to the God who has done it all for them in the death an resurrection of His Son (Rom 10:4-6). It is faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 10:6-10), which solved the dilemna of human sin and God's promise of life. It would be the same to say that a man who has justifying faith is a man who comes empty-handed to receive the gift of Jesus' death that has no price to it (Rom 4:4). To say that Justification is by faith is no different than saying that justifiation is free. This grace of justification occurs at the moment of faith and confession in the resurrected Lord Jesus (Rom 10:7-13).

V As a result of sinners being justified, they have eternally settled peace with God (Rom 5:1), are saved from His wrath (Rom 5:9), and are entitled to a secure life everlasting in glory (Titus 3:7). This life is inherited by virtue of the righteousness they have attained to in Christ Jesus (Rom 4:13; 10:4) which can never be annuled or cancled.