CHAPTER 9 Justification

Without a doubt, the most unsettling aspect of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount was this shocking statement: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

If the gauge of righteousness is absolute perfection, what hope is there for anyone?

The people listening to Jesus that day believed that the scribes and Pharisees were the embodiment of the highest human righteousness. And in a sense they were they held to the strictest imaginable legalistic standards. Here is how the apostle Paul chronicled his life as a Pharisee: “Circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless” (Phil. 3:5-6). The Pharisees fasted, prayed, abstained from questionable practices, paid tithes, gave alms, memorized Scripture and even devised their own rigid laws that went beyond what God had commanded in Scripture.

Yet Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). If you believe that establishes an impossible standard, you have understood the message.

Remember the rich young ruler? He was a Pharisee who evidently believed he had kept the law as completely as humanly possible. After he walked away unbelieving, Jesus told His disciples, “It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:23). What was their response? Astonished, they asked Him, “Then who can be saved?” (v. 25).

Jesus’ reply was, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (v.26).

Salvation is impossible for sinful humanity. We have no redeeming resources of our own. We cannot atone for our sins. We cannot even believe without God’s sovereign enablement (John 6:44, 65); we cannot conjure up faith out of the human will. And we certainly cannot live up to God’s standard of perfect righteousness.

In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther sat in the tower of the Black Cloister in Wittenberg, meditating on the perfect righteousness of God. Although he was the most scrupulous of monks, attending confession for hours each day, seeking forgiveness for the minutest of sins, he realized that the standard of perfect righteousness was absolutely unattainable. He thought of divine righteousness as an unrelenting, unforgiving, avenging wrath and believed his state was hopeless.

Then while reading the Bible, he came to understand that the righteousness the apostle Paul celebrated so joyfully is a perfect righteousness that is imputed to us, not the flawed and worthless “righteousness” we earn for ourselves. In Paul’s words, it was “not… a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil. 3:9).

The remedy Luther found was the doctrine of justification by faith. His discovery launched the Reformation and put an end to the Dark Ages. What Luther came to realize is that God’s righteousness, revealed in the gospel, is reckoned in full to the account of everyone who turns to Christ in repentant faith. God’s own righteousness thus becomes the ground on which believers stand before Him.

This doctrine of justification is most fully expounded by the apostle Paul. The book of Romans in particular includes a lengthy treatise on justification, in which Paul demonstrates that as far back as Genesis, God graciously saved people by reckoning His righteousness to them because of their faith. No one has ever been saved through the merit system-salvation has been available only by grace through faith ever since our first parents fell. Abraham is the prime example of this: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Rom. 4:3).

What Is Justification?

During His earthly ministry, Jesus rarely used the word justification. Nevertheless, justification by faith was the underlying theme of the message He preached. Look again at the parable of the Pharisee and the publican:

He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!”’” (Luke 18:9- 13).

Jesus must have drawn gasps from the Pharisees when He punctuated His story with this pronouncement: “I tell you, this man [the tax collector] went to his house justified rather than the other [the Pharisee]; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 14).

The parable reveals that justification is instantaneous. The repentant tax collector “went to his house justified”; that is, there was no time lapse-no works of penance, no ritual, no sacrament, no confessional exercise, no meritorious deeds he needed to do before he could be whole in God’s eyes. Everything had already been done on his behalf. He was justified by faith on the spot.

Here our Lord simply states the fact of justification; He does not explain the theology of it. Still, the parable is an ideal portrait of justification by faith, in perfect harmony with the doctrine that Paul would later articulate so clearly in Romans 3-5.

Justification may be defined as an act of God whereby He imputes to a believing sinner the full and perfect righteousness of Christ, forgiving the sinner of all unrighteousness, declaring him or her perfectly righteous in God’s sight, thus delivering the believer from all condemnation. That definition contains several elements: imputed righteousness, forgiveness of sins, a new standing before God, and a reversal of God’s wrath. Those all indicate that justification is a legal verdict. It is a forensic reality that takes place in the court of God, not in the heart of the sinner. In other words, justification is an instantaneous change of one’s standing before God, not a gradual transformation that takes place within the one who is justified.

There are two serious errors to avoid in the matter of justification. First, do not confuse justification with sanctification. Roman Catholic theology makes this error. Sanctification is the work of God whereby He sets the believer apart from sin. Sanctification is a practical reality, not simply a legal declaration. Sanctification involves a change in the sinner’s character, not just a new standing before God. By including sanctification as an aspect of justification, Catholic theology renders instantaneous justification impossible. Worse, this view substitutes the believer’s own imperfect righteousness in place of Christ’s unblemished righteousness, as the basis of justification.

There is a second, equally dangerous, error: do not separate justification and sanctification so radically that you allow for one without the other. This is the error of antinomianism. God will not justify those He does not sanctify. God does not offer justification as a stand-alone means of salvation. Election, regeneration, faith, justification, sanctification, and even glorification are all integral facets of God’s saving work: “Whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son [sanctification]…. and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30). Justification cannot be isolated and made to represent the sum of God’s saving work. Yet that is exactly the error that is rampant in contemporary theology.

Imputed Righteousness

The cornerstone of justification is the reckoning of righteousness to the believer’s account. This is the truth that sets Christian doctrine apart from every form of false religion. We call it “imputed righteousness.” Apart from it, salvation is utterly impossible.

Sin defiles us. The apostle James wrote, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (James 2:10). No amount of doing good can make up for even one sin. The person who has sinned owes an impossible debt.

Moreover, a righteous God cannot simply overlook sin or act as if it never occurred. There must be atonement for sin. Law demands a penalty for sin, and it is a penalty that must be paid: “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

Yet atonement alone does not fully solve the problem. If it were somehow possible for sinners to atone for their sins and obtain forgiveness, they would still stand before God without merit. Although their guilt would be erased, they would still lack the perfect righteousness God requires (Matt. 5:20, 48).

Imputed righteousness solves the dilemma. Christ made atonement by shedding His own blood on the cross. That provides forgiveness. And just as our sins were put to His account when He bore them on the cross, so now His righteousness is reckoned as our own. His perfect righteousness thus becomes the ground on which we stand before God.

This is a crucial point on which Protestants have historically been in full agreement: sinners are not justified because of some good thing in them; God can declare them righteous because He first imputes to them the perfect righteousness of Christ. We stand before God as if we were perfectly just. Judicially, the Father views us as if our righteousness were on the same lofty plane as His Son’s!

Again, this is owing to no good thing in us—not even God’s sanctifying or regenerating work in our hearts. Justification is possible exclusively through the imputed righteousness of Christ: “To the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). “Those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (5:17). “Through the obedience of the One the many will be made [declared] righteous” (v. 19). “Now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe” (3:21-22). “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). “Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil. 3:9).

Forgiveness of Sins

Justification also guarantees the forgiveness and remission of sins. That may seem obvious from the meaning of the word. Yet it is not the kind of forgiveness that merely excuses or disregards wrongdoing. As noted, if God simply ignored sins, He would compromise His own holiness. Instead, the penalty sin demands was fully paid in the death of Christ. We are therefore “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness… that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:24-26).

God can justify without besmirching His own righteousness because Christ made propitiation. That is a technical term describing the reconciliation of God to the sinner. Christ atoned for our sins; God is therefore propitiated. In other words, He is kindly disposed to us and eager to forgive. The enmity has been removed. The full price was paid, so God can receive believing sinners with no taint on His own righteousness.

A New Standing

“This man went to his house justified” (Luke 18:14) describes the tax-gatherer’s standing before God. It is not difficult to imagine the Pharisees’ anger when Jesus related this story. In essence He was telling them that a pathetic publican in abject repentance was more acceptable to God than they were.

The reason for this is quite simple: they “trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (v. 9). Likewise, the Pharisee in the parable was seeking justification on the basis of his own righteousness: “I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get” (vv. 11-12). We commonly call such people self-righteous. Have you ever considered why? It is because they assume they have ample righteousness of their own and do not see the need for imputed righteousness.

But the tax-gatherer was under no such delusion. All he could do was repent and plead for mercy. And so perfect righteousness was imputed to his account. Forever thereafter he stood before God fully justified.

Reversal of God’s Wrath

Justification is the polar opposite of condemnation. One of the most blessed of all biblical truths is found in Romans 8:1: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Justification by faith is what makes that possible. If God’s demeanor toward us were determined by our own behavior, no one could escape His wrath; for all of us are wretched sinners-even the most mature saint in Christ (cf. Rom. 7:24). But we who are in Christ need not fear condemnation; we have been justified.

What do you suppose would have become of the tax-gatherer in Jesus’ parable? Do you think he would have continued praying in fear and anguish week after week? Certainly not. Like Matthew and Zaccheus, two real-life tax-gatherers we have already met, this man would have discovered that justification offers the only possible relief from the guilt of sin. We can be certain that his life would not have continued as before.

Justification and the Life of the Believer

We noted above that antinomianism is the notion of justification apart from sanctification. Luther himself coined the term, for already in his lifetime, some were beginning to corrupt the doctrine he had rediscovered, claiming that justification by faith rendered unnecessary the preaching of the law, obedience to the law, or sanctification as evidence of justification.

Luther’s remedy for antinomianism was preaching the law of God, because he rightly understood that those who comfort themselves with the promise of justification while living in wanton unrighteousness are thereby shown that theirs is a false security.

Does justification by faith make way for licentious living? Not if the doctrine is properly understood. Paul anticipated the antinomian argument: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” (Rom. 6:1). “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!” (v. 15). Romans 6 is Paul’s rebuttal to antinomianism. He argues that our union with Christ guarantees we shall no longer be slaves of sin: “Our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin” (vv. 6-7).

The work of God in salvation does not stop with justification. God does not declare sinners righteous only to abandon them to their own energies. The glorious justification our Lord spoke of is only the beginning of the abundant life He promised (cf. John 10:10). “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:38). The full redemption He promised and purchased for His people brings not only justification, but also sanctification, union with Him, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and an eternity of blessing. It is not merely a one-time legal transaction.

But a one-time legal transaction-justification-is the turning point. It is what moves us into a new relationship with God so that we can walk in the light as He is in the light (cf. 1 John 1:7). It is what brings peace with God in place of enmity (Rom. 5:1). It is what makes us heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:7). It is the heart of all God’s work on our behalf, beginning with His foreknowledge before the foundation of the world and carrying on to our final glorification with Him (Rom. 8:29–30).