Job framed the classic problem of how a holy God can deal with His sinful creation by asking, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one” (Job 14:4). Thankfully, the gospel provides a comprehensive salvation, addressing every aspect of the Lord’s just requirements and humanity’s fallen condition. The biblical doctrine of justification specifically resolves the legal side of Job’s dilemma. As the righteous Judge, God is both “…just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
A Declaration of Legal Standing
People often confuse justification and sanctification. Moreover, they mistakenly believe that striving toward holiness earns them a righteous standing before the Almighty. Scripturally, this is not accurate. Like all components of the gospel, justification and sanctification are by grace (Rom. 3:24). In the vocabulary of salvation, justification means to legally declare someone righteous. It does not make one righteous in practice; that is what sanctification means. The gospel contains both of these ideas, but it is important to recognize the divine order: First, God justifies the sinner; then He sanctifies them positionally and—over time—progressively.1 The Scriptures stress that one must be justified righteously, with no subversion of the truth through bribery or duplicity. Deuteronomy 25:1 explains this divine standard: “If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.” Proverbs 17:15, on the other hand, shows the contrasting wrong way: “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.”
A Demonstration of God’s Grace
True and false ways of justification are depicted in our Lord’s parable about two men who went to the Temple to pray (Luke 18:9-14). Pharisees were noted for their public piety: ostentatiously praying, giving alms, and performing other religious works to display self-righteousness (Matt. 23:2-36). Accordingly, the Pharisee in the parable prayed a self-admiring discourse, exalting himself at the expense of the nearby tax collector. As one writer warns: “First century or twenty-first century, it is human nature to struggle with legalism and self-reliance. In our pride we want to assert our own righteousness before God rather than cast ourselves completely upon the righteousness of Christ. This tendency is universal; it is not limited to Jew or Gentile, ancient or modern, young or old. Legalism was a first-century Jewish problem whether they saw it or not. It is our problem today as well.”2
Meanwhile, the tax collector belonged to a despised class of sinners; many, through their collaboration with the Roman overlords, exploited the people. Nevertheless, this particular publican, with his downcast gaze, was “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3), crying out for mercy with these words: “God be propitious to me-the sinner!” (Luke 18:13, YLT).3 Regardless of his past sins and poor reputation, he was justified because of his faith in God. Despite his religious performance, the Pharisee remained unjustified – better known as “condemned” (v.14; John 3:18, 36).
A Defense of God’s Righteousness and Grace
What is the basis of justification and how can God be gracious to unjust people? The righteous judge has standards and there must be an actual judgment underlying His saving work. By His redemptive sacrifice, Christ paid the penalty for sins and liberated sinners from sin’s slavery. Believers are now transferred from the enemy’s despotic and dark reign into “the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Col. 1:13). All of this flows from the Lord Jesus’ death, dying as the substitute of sinners. He is the place of the sacrifice that satisfies the claims of divine justice – “the propitiatory” or “mercy seat”4 as Romans 3:25 says. Yet He is also the sacrifice that makes propitiation, paying the legal debt for us, the transgressors (1 John 2:2; 4:10). Thus, one sees that God is righteous, but He declares sinners righteous based on His sacrificial work through Christ, when they receive Him by faith (Rom. 4:4-5).5 As Gooding and Lennox explain: “God’s solution is that his own Son as mankind’s representative has paid the penalty for us by bearing the judgment of God against sin and dying on the cross. If, therefore, we put our faith in Jesus, God can count his death as our death; our penalty having thus been paid by Jesus, God can justify us, that is, declare us to be right before his judgment throne.”6
A Demonstration of Changed Lives Through the Reality of Salvation
Justification can also mean to vindicate someone – even God Himself, as when some Jews demonstrated that He was “right” by believing John’s preaching and submitting to his baptism (Luke 7:29-30). Furthermore, James 2:17-26 shows that someone who is justified by faith will demonstrate this changed status through a new lifestyle. Believers are not saved by works, but they are saved for a lifestyle characterized by good deeds (Eph. 2:8-10; Titus 2:11-14).7 Their claim of salvation does not merely rest on words – which may be devoid of reality. Instead, it is evidenced by their sanctified behavior, affirming the truthfulness of their verbal confession of faith.
Biblical salvation addresses realities, not unsubstantiated wishful thinking. It proceeds from Christ’s sacrificial death (Rom. 5:9; Gal. 3:13, 24-25; Phil. 2:8; Heb. 9:26), is confirmed by His resurrection (Rom. 4:25), and leads to eternal glorification with Him (Rom. 8:28-30). Justification is the work of the Trinity, rather than man’s effort. One receives it through faith, and therefore, it stands irrevocable by His will and grace.
ENDNOTES
- Note the order of these doctrines in Romans 1-8 and Galatians 3-6.
- Jay Harvey, “Justification: Why the Lord Our Righteousness Is Better News Than the Lord Our Example,” in Kevin DeYoung, Don’t Call It a Comeback. (Crossway, 2011), 103.
- HCSB has “turn your wrath from me.”
- JND.
- “To tell me that I can escape the guilt of my sins by telling myself that I am not really responsible is to reduce me to an animal. How then can we find forgiveness and release, without saying our wrong deeds do not matter? The only answer I know is to be found in Christ, who came primarily, not to teach us to be good, but to release us from the chain of guilt. Christ, by his atoning death, solves that problem, in that he by his suffering maintains the standards of God’s law, and its values, upon which our happiness depends. At the same time, he makes it possible for God to remain righteous and to justify those who have faith in Jesus.” David Gooding, Is there a Reasonable Hope for Humanity? A Myrtlefield House Transcript. (Myrtlefield Trust, 2019), 10.
- David W. Gooding and John C. Lennox, Key Bible Concepts: Defining The Basic Terms Of The Christian Faith. (Myrtlefield Trust, 2013), 44.
- “His ‘works’ look uncommonly like ‘the fruit of the Spirit’ of which Paul speaks. They are warm deeds of love springing from a right attitude to God. They are the fruits of faith. What James objects to is the claim that faith is there when there is no fruit to attest it.” Leon Morris, “Faith,” New Bible Dictionary. (IVP, 1996), 359.