Justification.
This is an important word. Paul tells us that Christ "was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" (Romans 4:25). One who has been justified has been declared righteous. It is not that a Christian has been made righteous, as if God does some work inside us so that we are finally worthy to be adopted in his family. It is that the believer has been declared righteous by the powerful work and will of God.
Read carefully the following definition of justification. It comes from New Hampshire Confession of Faith:
We believe that the great Gospel blessing which Christ of his fulness bestows on such as believe in Him, is Justification; that Justification consists in the pardon of sin and the promise of eternal life, on principles of righteousness; that it is bestowed not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through His own redemption and righteousness, [by virtue of which faith his perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us of God;] that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity.
I recently read Guy Waters's little book, Justification: Being Made Right with God? It is a short treatise on the crucial topic of justification. His second chapter, "Justification Applied," reminds us that the doctrine of justification is not the stuff of dry theological textbooks but a much needed truth for everyday life.
The doctrine of justification is a most comforting doctrine. Here are five reasons why:
One is justified by Christ's work, not your own. We are now free from depending upon our own strength, will, smarts, or experience to be approved by God. Again and again in the Bible, we are presented with individuals who are trying to prove or earn a right standing before a holy God. But justification teaches that such a standing cannot be earned by a sinner--it must be received through faith. The doctrine of justification puts to death the idea that if we are just good enough God will let us into his presence.
Because of the doctrine of justifcation, serving God is no longer impossible and it is no longer a burden. You are now able and willing to serve the Lord. "It is for freedom," as Paul wrote, "Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1). Peter made it clear that Christ "himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness" (1 Peter 1:24). Having been justified, the life we always wanted to live is now in reach. This does not mean that serving God will always be easy. But it does mean that serving God is always possible.
The Christian life is a struggle, but it is a peaceful struggle. We are at war against sin, but we are at war with the sure and certain knowledge of victory. The believer has a peace that cannot be stolen from him, because it was not earned by him. Some believers wonder if they have peace since they don't feel at peace. It is easy to confuse the peace promised by Scripture with the kind of peace promised by a Caribbean vacation! The two are not the same. The peace of justification is the assurance that regardless of the pain that you endure, your confidence in Christ will continue.Paul put it this way (and notice the link between justification and peace): "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1)
Christians will be discouraged, they will be tired, they will be shaken. But joy is always possible because the greatest enemies (sin and death) have been defeated. Again, hear Paul, "Through him [Christ] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope . . ." (Romans 5:2).
It's not just that we can serve God now. It's not just that we can have peace now. It's not just that we can have joy now. But the doctrine of justification teaches that we can please God, now. Listen to Paul, "By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:3). Those who walk according to the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:8). But those who walk according to the Spirit can please God! But who walks according to the Spirit? Only those who have been justified by faith alone in Christ alone.
How familiar are you with the Bible's teaching on justification? As you can probably tell, the idea that we are declared righteous not on the basis of what we do but on the basis of what Christ did is at the heart of the Gospel. Do you know this doctrine? I'm not asking how comfortable you feel explaining it to someone else--that will come with time. I'm asking if you have truly experienced it, if you have really tasted the rest and peace and joy that come from having been justified.
Sweet as home to pilgrims weary,
Light to newly opened eyes,
Or full springs in deserts dreary,
Is the rest the cross supplies;
All who taste it
Shall to rest immortal rise.
~ joseph swain, 1792
("Justifi-What?" by Alex Crain first published on Christianity.com on June 12, 2012)
Justification deals with the question of our standing before God. How can I be right with God? That's the question the Doctrine of Justification answers. How can I be right with God because I'm already a sinner and the law condemns sinners? It's a irremediable condemnation. There is no roadmap in the law to get back to a right standing with God once you've broken the law because if you offend in one point, you've broken it all and you're guilty. The law condemns. It doesn't give us a way of eternal salvation.
So that's where grace comes in and that's why the Gospel is a different message from the message of the law. The message of the law isn't a bad message. It's a good message in the sense that it serves the right purpose. It shows us of God, it shows us how high the standard is, but it also teaches us it's an impossible standard. So the law leaves us without hope and that's where the gospel comes in and gives us hope. And that hope is embodied in the Doctrine of Justification, which teaches us that the righteousness God requires, the righteousness we need for a right standing before God is supplied for us by Christ. That's what he did with his life and his death.
He lived a perfect life. He died as a guiltless man, but he died in payment for the sins of others. And since he took my unrighteousness and paid the price of it, I get his righteousness and I get the credit for it. It's a perfect exchange. That's what Second Corinthians in 5:21 is talking about when it says that God made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us so that we might be the righteousness of God in him. It's just an interesting phrase and a fascinating verse. Notice, God made Christ to do this.
So the atonement was actually ordered by God and ordained by God and fulfilled by Christ in obedience to his father, out of love for his father and out of love for those whom he redeemed. But it was God's doing, the atonement, that even though he's the one who demands the penalty of sin, he's also the one who supplies the payment on our behalf in the person of Christ who took our sins. That's what the meaning of the cross is. Christ was guiltless. He'd never sinned. And even in the testimony of his trial at the crucifixion, everyone said we find no fault in this man. No one could righteously condemn him for anything. Yet he died a sinner's death. He did that, scripture says, on our behalf, even as far back as Isaiah 53. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was smitten for our offenses. He was punished for our sin. That's what Isaiah 53 is teaching. That's what the entire New Testament teaches. And that's what we mean by atonement, that Christ substituted for us, took the punishment we deserve, and now his perfect righteousness is given to us like a perfect garment that covers our sin and covers our guilt and gives us a righteous standing before God.
That's what the Doctrine of Justification is about. It's all about how guilty people can have a right standing before God, be forgiven of their sins, be invested with a righteousness that really doesn't even belong to them, but they get the credit for it. Paul was so taken with this that when he gave his own testimony in Philippians three he talked about all that he'd done as a Pharisee. He was raised as a Pharisee, trained to be a Pharisee, lived his life in fastidious obedience to the minutia of the law as much as he possibly could, but Paul knew he was a sinner anyway. He couldn't keep the law perfectly the way the law demands. And he was trained in all the ways of righteousness and the law of God. He knew it with all his heart. He memorized major portions of scripture and he took all that training and all that righteousness that belonged to him and it's no better than dung. It's rubbish. He threw it away and said because I want a righteousness that's not my own righteousness, the perfect righteousness of God, which is imputed to those who believe in Christ, and that's the Doctrine of Justification.
We actually get a righteousness that's so flawlessly perfect and so vastly full and free that there's no way we could ever earn it, and so it's much better than any righteousness we could possibly earn for ourselves. That whole concept is embodied, even in our language. We talk about self righteousness and we know that's a bad thing to be self righteous. The self righteous are those who think they can concoct a righteousness of their own that's good enough to earn their standing with God. But scripture commands us and the Gospel teaches us to be humble and not depend on any righteousness that's our own, but to count on the righteousness of Christ to be the basis for our standing with God. That's the antithesis of self righteousness. That's also what it means to believe the gospel. That's what the Doctrine of Justification teaches. That's why it's so important. It's the heart of the Gospel.
(First published on Christianity.com on September 30, 2010)
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