Justification is the sovereign work of God in which he declares the guilty sinner to be righteous and the rightful demands of the law to be satisfied.
Justification is the opposite of condemnation. We are condemned by God because of our sin (John 3:18-20) and if we were to appear before his throne of judgement he would have to find us guilty and sentence us to an eternity in hell. That would be a correct and legal verdict. In justification God the judge pronounces us acquitted of the charge. He does not say we are innocent because we are not, but we are acquitted. We are not condemned but declared to be acceptable to the holy God. Bearing in mind our guilt and that we deserve hell, this has to be the supreme demonstration of God’s love and grace.
How can God do this? If we are guilty, how can he pronounce us to be pardoned? Does he bend the law? Does he turn a blind eye to our sin? Does he forget all the declarations of judgement he has made upon sin? He does none of these things. He cannot ignore sin and still be a holy God. If God is to justify us he must do it in a way that makes sure he remains just and holy. We are told how God does this in Romans 3:21-26. That passage finishes with the words that God is ‘just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Christ’.
RIGHTEOUSNESS
Justification does not only take away condemnation but gives to us a righteousness, and this righteousness is the basis on which God now deals with us. This righteousness, says Romans 3:21, is ‘apart from law’; that means that it is nothing to do with how we have kept the law of God. It is a righteousness from God — something that God gives us. In fact, it is Christ’s righteousness. God credits us with the righteousness of his sinless Son. This is a staggering truth and it is the heart of the Christian gospel.
Our own righteousness is like filthy rags in God’s sight (Isaiah 64:6). If we are to be acceptable to God we need something better than that. In Philippians 3:9 Paul delights that now that he is a Christian he has found ‘the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith’. Isaiah expresses the same joy as Paul when he says, ‘I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness’ (Isaiah 61:10).
HOW JUSTIFICATION WORKS
Romans 3 gives us the answer as to how justification works.
- It comes to us through faith (v.22)
- It is a product of God’s grace (v.24)
- It is a result of all that Christ has done for us
– He has redeemed us (v.24)
– He was our propitiation (sacrifice for sin) (v.25)
In giving his Son to die in our place God demonstrated his justice. Our sins are not overlooked. They are dealt with exactly as God always said they should be dealt with. They are punished, but because they were laid on Jesus and he has taken responsibility for them, he takes our punishment instead of us. God is able to justify guilty sinners on the grounds of what Jesus has done,. He is acting in a perfectly lawful way because our sins have been dealt with according to divine law.
Our sins are credited to Jesus and God treats Jesus as he should treat us — he is forsaken and dies in our place. Jesus’ righteousness is credited to us and God treats us as he has always treated Jesus — we become his children and he owns us as his redeemed people.
