Justification By Faith

By Author: Johnson Philip
Total Articles: 90
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The Protestant Reformation that started more than five hundred years was such a powerful movement that none could remain untouched. Families were divided, hundreds of thousands were killed, many more were deprived of property, yet they clung to this doctrine.

Five centuries after, the doctrine remains important. Any compromise with this doctrine threatens to eclipse the Christian truth. Thus it is important for every Christian to clearly understand this doctrine and its implications.

The Word of God reminds that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), therefore all of us stand as guilty before God. Every person automatically knows that he is sinful and guilty and that he is not worthy to stand in God's presence. However, there comes a moment when God takes a sinner and declares two things, first that he is no longer a sinner, and second that he is a righteous person. This is justification.

Obviously, no righteous judge can declare a sinful and guilty person as "not a sinner". That being the situation, declaring a sinner as righteous is more difficult. However, that is exactly ...
... what God does. Here is now it takes place:

The First Step, Salvation By Grace: As mentioned before, what a trespasser longs for is forgiveness and relief from punishment. This is exactly what God does first.

In Romans 6: 23 we read, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is Eternal Life in Christ Jesus". In John 3:16 we read, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have Everlasting life". While man struggles, God has already paid the cost and opened the way to all.

Man is alienated from God as long as he is a sinner condemned unto death. However, once he comes to God and obtained forgiveness and salvation, God can now work in him. This is exactly what we see in the next stage.

The Second Step, Union With Christ: Once a person trusts in Christ and accepts Him as personal Savior, God forgives him and unites him with the Body of Christ. That Church is the Body of Christ is mentioned in Ephesians and Colossians. In Ephesians 2: 16 we read, "And that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross". In Colossians 1:24 we read, "...For His body's sake, which is the church". And in Ephesians 12:22 and 23 we read, "... head over all things to the Church, which is His body...".

Taking a regenerate believer and uniting him with the body of Christ is a special activity of the Holy. In I Corinthians 12: 13 says, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body". Here baptism refers to identifying or uniting two things.

There was no need for God to lay the penalty of our sins on Christ. That He chose to do so is His grace. Similarly, there is no need for God to unite with the body of Christ. However, He does so in His grace because those union opens a way for God to many things for the new believers. Because of this union, God can now grant many things to the believers that He had granted to Christ because now they are in union with each other. Also, many things which Christ has can be imputed to those who are in union with Christ.

The New Testament repeatedly uses the expression "in Him" and "in Christ". This is a reference to things which are given, or attributed, or imputed to believers "in union with Christ". We must remember that not all what Christ has can be given to others. But certain things like His Holiness can be attributed to others at least positionally. This is exactly what happens in justification.

The Third Stage, Justification: Once a new believer is united with the body of Christ, God grants many things to the believer which He grants to Christ. Sonship of believers is a good example of this. God also imputes many things to believers which Christ has, and the best example here is justification.

It can be understood in the following way. Once a believer is united to the body of Christ, God views that person as part of the body of Christ. As a consequence, the righteousness which is Christ's so that God views that person as righteous (in Christ).

Here it should be understood clearly that Christ's righteousness in not transmitted or infused to a believer. On the contrary it is only attributed or imputed to the believer. This is not a physical transmission to a believer, but only a legal accounting.

Thus this person who was a sinner till yesterday, stands as righteous in Christ today. God no longer sees him as a sinner but as a righteous person or a "saint" in the language of New Testament. This act of declaring and viewing a sinner as a person who is "not guilty", who is righteous, who is a saint, because he is imputed or covered with the righteousness of Christ is called justification. A sinner and trespasser cannot be justified. But when the penalty has been paid, and when he is covered with the cloth of Christ's righteousness, he who was a sinner now stands justified as a saint.

The Process Of Justification: In the previous pages, we split up God's work into several stages for the sake of clarity and understanding. In reality, several things take place in the life of a believer simultaneously at the moment he believers in Christ. God the Father does all these things in His grace so that He can give us a new nature, a new identity, and a new destiny. However, it is always helpful from the human perspective to view these divine actions in a more expanded from for our understanding. That is what we have done in the previous pages. God forgives our sins, unites us, and we stand justified.

The big question now is, does man play any role in his justification. Or can he do anything to expedite or assure his justification. And all man-made religions assert that he can work for his justification, and thus hasten the process. To establish this theory, all of them in one form or other teach that man has a "spark of the divine" in him that can be nurtured to grow and make him holy or justified. Hindus teach this in the most potent from, because they claim that man is god and all what he needs is to shed his illusions that he is god. The Roman Catholics teach to the effect that this "spark" is transmitted to the child at the moment of his baptism. There is a whole range of teaching between these two, and ultimately all of them amount to "work for your justification" concept. However, this is not what the Bible teaches.

Justification is a gift of God, and He does not demand or accept anything in lieu of it. In Romans 3: 24 we read, "Being justified FREELY by grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus". This is a reminder redemption come first and justification is granted freely and non-meritoriously graciously along with that. The scripture repeatedly reminds that human work is not the basis of justification. "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Romans 4: 5). On faith, a totally non-meritorious response from man, can bring divine justification to him. This is "justification by faith" or Sola Fide, as repeatedly proclaimed in Latin by the Reformers. This is declared in many places including Roman 3: 28 where we read, "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law". Gelatins 2:16 we read, "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even as we believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified".

Implications of Justification by Faith: Often a fundamental doctrine looks just like another piece of theory. No practical implications can be seen. The problem here is not with the doctrine, but with those who fail to expound the practical aspects after the explain the theoretical part. The more an expositor is removed in time from the Reformations, the greater is the possibility that he will fail to see this connection, making his preaching all the more ineffective.

All ideas have practical consequences. More so when it is a fundamental doctrine. This is illustrated by the Protestant Reformation which spread worldwide like a wildfire and created a vertical split in families, societies, and churches. The Roman Catholic Church tortured millions of Protestants and killed hundreds of thousands. The consequences of this single doctrine were so life-transforming that millions chose torture over compromise. Obviously this doctrine has series implications for life, enough for people to become willing to forfeit life and property.

Teaching Justification Leads to Freedom. All man-made religious teach work-based salvation and no objective justification. Thus their adherents (including the adherents of the 'christian' religions) slave all their lives without assurance of salvation. All man-first and unsure salvation after that. But God offers salvation first, and then expects us to work. Not "for" salvation or justification which has given us a new identity.

Conclusion: Every person ever born lives with guilt in one form or another. they crave for justification, but know a guilty person cannot be justified. So they spend all their life trying for a remission or forgiveness of sins, but no amount of human efforts has ever given an assurance to anyone.

The Word of God assures that God grants both salvation as well as justification in His grace, but this truth was suppressed every time that "Christian religion" rose to power. Protestant Reformation was the result of discovering this truth after 1000 years of suppression by the Roman Catholic church.

The Word of God says that the moment a person accept Lord Jesus as Savior, God grants him salvation, union with Christ, and many other things due to this union. One of these is justification granted through imputing or positionally accounting the righteousness of Christ to him. This is grace.

Once a position is granted we need to work in keeping with the position. Our daily life should prove to people that we are God's righteousness children. We should also spot and oppose all those developments which can snatch away the doctrine of Justification By Faith so as to enslave us.
Dr. Johnson C. Philip is the webmaster of Free Courses, a site devoted to absolutely free bible courses.