Justification

[Arial]

I think most here agree with that foundational doctrine to the Protestant Christian Faith , of Justification by Faith Alone. What I will attempt to do here is unfold what is behind justification and why we need to be justified.

I do this, because it was my experience in the church for the first 23 years of my conversion, that it is a topic that was never discussed and to my recollection, even mentioned. Admittedly, that covers a small sampling of churches, six or seven, but they were in different parts of the country. Admittedly too, is the fact that they were all non-denominational and Charismatic. However, today we have options at our finger tips to sample from the websites of most churches, the sermons they preach. It is not only the non-denominational and Charismatic that are guilty of this neglect, but many mainline denominational churches as well.

"Justification may be defined as the act by which unjust sinners are made right in the sight of a just and holy God. The supreme need of unjust persons is righteousness. It is the lack of righteousness that is supplied by Christ on behalf of the believing sinner. Justification by faith alone means justification by the righteousness or merit of Christ alone, not by our goodness or good deeds." (From Reformation Study Bible text note Justification by Faith)

This, most of Orthodox Protestants adhere to. It is a forensic righteousness, a legal position before God by the imputation of Christ's righteousness through faith in him.

All well and good, but how did Christ's death on the cross make the unjust, just? What did that death do in relation to the justice of God? Here we must look at his own justice as always and everywhere a just God, who would be a liar if sin did not meet its just punishment. "The soul of one who sins shall die." We cannot have a Savior whose death only appeases an angry God and satisfies his anger against sinners by killing his Son instead. Jesus is not simply saving sinners, he is undoing what was done in Adam. And he is not simply pardoning the sinner, he is redeeming them. Taking them from one condition (a sinner) to another condition (made righteous in Christ). He is not simply removing the penalty for sin, he is conquering sin and its result, death. (Hosea 13:14; Rev 20:14; 2 Tim 1:10; 1 Cor 15:26; 1 Peter 3:18; Col 2:15; Is 25:8; 1 Cor 15:24; Rev 21:1-6) Justice against sin must be met before mercy is given. It is in the cross that mercy and justice kiss. (Psalm 85:8-10.)

In case the argument is given that in the OT sacrificial system God did grant forgiveness without the Son paying the price; it was temporary, also required a blood substitute (a death for death), did not give eternal life, did not provide justification except to a few and that through faith, not the sacrifice, and its temporariness made space and time for the appointed time of Chris's incarnation.

On the cross, Jesus gave himself as a ransom. That is, he took the penalty upon his own flesh and blood body, that the sinner deserved. He made the payment in their stead. The penalty they deserved, death, he himself bore, satisfying God's justice against sin. He died, that he might rise again from the dead, the first fruits of all those he died for. In this, he conquered the power of sin to condemn those he died for, by giving to them his imputed righteousness, undoing also the imputed to them, the sinfulness of Adam. ( Romans 8:1-4; Romans 5:6-11, 19) Therefore, the believer, through faith in the person and work of Jesus, is fully reconciled to God. His sins are not just forgiven, they are paid for, actually. Jesus did not just take a beating and die in our place. He was accomplishing something.

If Christ's death on the cross paid for the sins of everyone actually, then everyone would be justified before God, reconciled to him. There wouldn't even be any need for faith. If it was not an actual payment that was made, but rather just a body given, it did not satisfy God's justice against sin, and in fact could be considered an injustice in that the perfectly righteous simply agreed to suffer and die as God willed it. The innocent instead of the guilty but the problem of sin and the fall, not really dealt with. It would have no power to conquer and eventually destroy sin from humanity and from the world. Sin and death are real. So something real must be done to defeat them. It is said in the scriptures that Jesus game himself as a ransom. A ransom is a real payment that removes the penalty attached to it from the one who committed the act that required the penalty.

To understand what it means to be justified and how that is accomplished we must begin and end and keep consistent throughout: Who is God? What is the problem to be solved? How does God solve it in Christ? What is his end purpose that consistently works through the historical accounts of redemption, and that he tells us in the scriptures? How was the person and work of Jesus able to do this in his death and resurrection?

 

[makesends]

I love that you must reference this in relation to who/what God is. It is pretty much meaningless except in view of His person and His purposes. (Strange how short and easy it is to say, "His person and His purposes", when it is actually even painful to not define, expound and extrapolate.)

 

[Arial]

I love that you must reference this in relation to who/what God is. It is pretty much meaningless except in view of His person and His purposes. (Strange how short and easy it is to say, "His person and His purposes", when it is actually even painful to not define, expound and extrapolate.)

Perhaps we should show how the Doctrine of God is crucial to the doctrine of Justification.

We could start with the holiness of God. Not only is he holy, but he is holy, holy, holy.

"The threefold repetition is a literary and rhetorical device used throughout the Bible to emphasize a particular point, concept, or divine truth. The use of threefold repetition is deeply rooted in the cultural and linguistic traditions of the ancient Near East, where the number three often symbolizes completeness and perfection. This thrice repeated declaration of God's holiness serves to emphasize His absolute purity and separateness from creation, highlighting His divine majesty and authority." (From biblehub.com/topical/t/threefold_repetition.htm )

Then we can ask the question: Who are we (mankind) in relation to the Holy, Holy, Holy?

We are a creature. Something the Holy, Holy, Holy created. Not only did he create us, and out of the dust (another thing he created) but he made us in his image and likeness. If we are made in his image, we are to reflect that image. We are not Holy, Holy, Holy, but we are created to bear the image of Holy, Holy, Holy. We are to be holy, just as he is holy. We are to be upright and obedient to Holy, Holy, Holy (his majesty and authority) in all our ways.

Adam and Eve our first parents were not, were cast away from his personal presence in the Garden, and lost access to the Tree of Life. One sin, one missing the mark by aiming at the wrong mark, and the consequences that followed, both to all mankind and to the creation itself, should show us how bad, bad, bad, sin against Holy, Holy, Holy is.

It is the problem of sin, not just sins, that God is dealing with through Christ. It is both these things that Christ rectifies on the cross by conquering them with his own substitutionary death and his resurrection. Only if they are conquered can any be made just before Holy, Holy, Holy. Those in Christ were crucified with him and will be raised just as he was raised. And positionally are raised with him now. That can only happen if sin and death are conquered. And we are justified by faith in the work of Christ as to righteousness, the work of Christ in the crucifixion, the work of Christ in the resurrection and ascension.

 

[makesends]

Perhaps we should show how the Doctrine of God is crucial to the doctrine of Justification.

We could start with the holiness of God. Not only is he holy, but he is holy, holy, holy.

"The threefold repetition is a literary and rhetorical device used throughout the Bible to emphasize a particular point, concept, or divine truth. The use of threefold repetition is deeply rooted in the cultural and linguistic traditions of the ancient Near East, where the number three often symbolizes completeness and perfection. This thrice repeated declaration of God's holiness serves to emphasize His absolute purity and separateness from creation, highlighting His divine majesty and authority." (From biblehub.com/topical/t/threefold_repetition.htm )

Then we can ask the question: Who are we (mankind) in relation to the Holy, Holy, Holy?

We are a creature. Something the Holy, Holy, Holy created. Not only did he create us, and out of the dust (another thing he created) but he made us in his image and likeness. If we are made in his image, we are to reflect that image. We are not Holy, Holy, Holy, but we are created to bear the image of Holy, Holy, Holy. We are to be holy, just as he is holy. We are to be upright and obedient to Holy, Holy, Holy (his majesty and authority) in all our ways.

Adam and Eve our first parents were not, were cast away from his personal presence in the Garden, and lost access to the Tree of Life. One sin, one missing the mark by aiming at the wrong mark, and the consequences that followed, both to all mankind and to the creation itself, should show us how bad, bad, bad, sin against Holy, Holy, Holy is.

It is the problem of sin, not just sins, that God is dealing with through Christ. It is both these things that Christ rectifies on the cross by conquering them with his own substitutionary death and his resurrection. Only if they are conquered can any be made just before Holy, Holy, Holy. Those in Christ were crucified with him and will be raised just as he was raised. And positionally are raised with him now. That can only happen if sin and death are conquered. And we are justified by faith in the work of Christ as to righteousness, the work of Christ in the crucifixion, the work of Christ in the resurrection and ascension.

To me, by the intense, 'awe'ful, burning purity of God, any unrighteousness is killed, completely done away with. Yet God can cover himself so that we may live. We are, at present, not able to see him, who "dwells in unapproachable light".

It is with the mathematical precision of an equation that he has justified us, giving us his very HOLY Spirit who is entrenched within us —even intractable in us— so that he even MUST see us as righteous, justifying us, so that we do not die by that contact.

Those who want to complain that the Reformed and Calvinists allow little concept of God's Love do not understand the depth of God's having come to us, and having made his home in us, and 'already, but not yet', made us one in Him, able to directly approach the Godhead, whose Almighty Spirit is our lawyer pleading our case with groanings that words cannot express. Yes, it takes that much effort to maintain us with this filth clinging to us, the 'old man', as acceptable to God! Only the Almighty can love that much.

WE consider ourselves aching to be with Him, and to see Him as He is. How much more then does God love us, who has gone to this much trouble to make us able to finally see Him as He is! I judge Adam and Eve, even when they were pure, before they disobeyed, hardly worth God's flicking them away with a careless brush of his hand. But he made them, and us, for his purposes. Nobody better tell me we don't believe in God's LOVE.

 

[ElectedbyHim]

I'm not certain I can ever fully wrap my mind around Justification.

What I mean is that I cannot understand how the living God can see me as righteous, when all I see is a wretched man of filthy rags.

Sometimes I focus more on my sinful flesh than I do on His holiness which cause me to see my ugliness if that makes any sense.

It is also my belief that when I focus on my sin, that in itself is sin.

I have been reading up on Justification the last few weeks.

This thread is not by coincidence or chance.

Thank you.

 

[Arial]

I'm not certain I can ever fully wrap my mind around Justification.

What I mean is that I cannot understand how the living God can see me as righteous, when all I see is a wretched man of filthy rags.

Sometimes I focus more on my sinful flesh than I do on His holiness which cause me to see my ugliness if that makes any sense.

It is also my belief that when I focus on my sin, that in itself is sin.

I have been reading up on Justification the last few weeks.

This thread is not by coincidence or chance.

Thank you.

Justification, though forensic terminology, is also a complete and forever reconciliation with God. He holds nothing against us. We will stumble but we will not fall because he holds us up. This love he has for us never fluctuates according to what we do that we shouldn't or don't do that we should. We cannot help but ask "Why?" "How can that be?"

When we recognize the position mankind is in before God by Adam and Eve and all the rest of us through them, kept from his presence (and I feel certain it was a visible and tangible presence due to the wording in Gen.) and why that was necessary, we may begin to grasp the glory of justification at least a little. We can't look upon his face and live. So holy and pure is he that the glory would consume anything corrupt. Holy and sinful cannot inhabit the same space in the same way at the same time. The holy devours the corrupt. Darkness and light cannot inhabit the same place at the same time and in the same way. A flashlight turned on inside a cave illustrates that. The darkness retreats from the light and does not exist in the light.

We know just how corrupt we are. Imagine what it would take for the only One who could rectify the situation to rectify it or even want to do so? First it takes the attribute of perfect pure love, and second it takes very God himself humbling himself to become a man, and his Father giving his only Son to die in their place. I think of it as Jesus as walking into the very maw of death, carrying the sins of his people with him, and slaying the dragon.

And through this "foolish" thing that not even the devil perceived would happen evidently, the King's victory was in his death. And God laughed at all who raged against him and thundered, "I have set my King on Zion!" (Psalm 2) The gospel spreads, the sheep are gathered, and none can be taken from the Father's hand. And when the last one comes into the fold, the King will return and bring with him in victorious procession, the risen dead in Christ and those who remain alive at his coming, changed. Mortality putting on immortality, corruption putting on incorruptability. "O death, where is your sting!?"