JUSTIFICATION (δικαίωσις, G1470, justification; δικαιοῦν, to justify). In Christian theology justification is that act of God by which the sinner, who is responsible for his guilt and is under condemnation but believes in Christ, is pronounced just and righteous, or acquitted, by God the judge (Rom 3:28; 4:25; 5:16, 18; 8:28-34). In the Scriptures God justifies by grace, for Christ’s sake, through faith.

Outline

1. The terms “justification” and “justify.”The noun or substantive “justification” (dikaiosis) is not used frequently in the Bible—only twice by Paul in his famous Epistle to the Romans, which may be regarded as the greatest single treatise in the Scriptures and in all lit. on the subject. The infrequent occurrence of the term does not imply that the doctrine of justification is not important in Biblical theology, only that the Biblical writers are prone to speak of justification in dynamic terms of the verb “justify” (diakaioun) which is found also in the LXX tr. of the OT. The term “justification” is closely related in both the OT and NT to the concept “righteousness” (zadik, dikaiosyne) which is not always apparent in Eng. “Righteousness” is a pregnant dynamic term of action describing God’s act of “pronouncing righteous,” “making righteous,” or even “doing righteousness.”

The word “justification” is derived from two Lat. words, justus and the verb facere, which together literally mean, “to make righteous” or “to do righteousness” (justificare). In the Scriptures, however, the terms “justification” or “to justify” are used in a special Biblical, forensic, or judicial sense, “to declare or pronounce righteous,” not to make righteous. Godet says “As to dikaioun (to justify), there is not an example in the whole of classic literature where it signifies: to make just” (Romans, p. 157). It is thus a declarative act of the God of grace by which He declares sinners free from the guilt and consequences of their sin through faith in the atonement of Christ.

One should not be misled by the familiar use of these terms today. In common speech today the words “justify,” “justification,” are used in a different sense from their original meaning. In present-day usage the “justified man” is an innocent man. The term is used to excuse action or to prove one was right in acting as he did, to vindicate himself either in the eyes of man or of the law. A person may say, “The man accused of murder did not commit murder. He was ‘justified’ in killing the intruder because he acted in self-defense.” A reliable dictionary today will define justification as “a reason, a fact, circumstance, or explanation that justifies or defends, for example, ‘the insult was sufficient justification for her to leave the party’.” In the art of printing, justification means the spacing of words and letters in a line so that all lines in a column have even margins. Used in these ways the term has little in common with the prevalent meaning in Scripture.

2. Justification according to the Apostle Paul. When the Apostle Paul preached the doctrine of justification in the ancient Rom. world it would seem that the term was readily understood by both Jew and Greek (Rom 1:14). The apostle does not take great pains to define the term, although the word usually may be understood from the context in which it is used. To the Corinthians he simply wrote, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11) and let it go at that. Even in the Epistle to the Romans, the longest and most detailed presentation of justification in the Bible, the apostle does not pause to explain these terms but assumes that his readers understand them. Although in his inspired written record of God’s revelation of salvation to sinful man, the apostle uses other picture words to describe God’s action (apolytrosis), “redemption” (Rom 3:24) and katallage, “reconciliation” (5:11), his favorite term, esp. in his Epistle to the Romans, is (dikaiosis) “justification” (4:25, 5:16) and words closely related such as (dikaios) “just” or “righteous” (dikaiosyne), “righteousness” (dikaiō), “to justify” (dikaioma), “judgment” or “decree” (dikaiōs), “righteously.” Whether Paul speaks of “justification by faith” and/or of the negative opposite impossibility, justification by works, the meaning of the word “justify” by itself is basically declarative or forensic (the word “forensic” always is used in connection with law, courtroom procedure, judgment, or public discussion and deba te). A man justified by works would be pronounced righteous because he did the works and a judge says so; God pronounces sinners righteous because of Christ’s work for him. In both cases the act of judging or justifying is forensic. A study of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans reveals that the idea of judgment or rendering a decision is the leitmotif of his entire presentation on justification. When he says that “God gave them up” (1:24-28) in speaking of the sins of natural man, this act involved a judgment on the part of God. The section in his treatise (2:6-11) esp. exemplifies this meaning of justification. Since God’s justice is righteous and perfect, He will pronounce judgment upon every man according to his works. Paul says a judgment, a “justification,” will be rendered for all men, eternal life to those who have done well, wrath and damnation to those who have disobeyed. The verdict will be as it should be, for there is no partiality with God. The forensic situation is the same as that of which Moses writes: “If there is a dispute between men, and they come into court, and the judges decide between them, acquitting (LXX: δικαιόω, G1467) the innocent and condemning the guilty, then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense” (Deut 25:1, 2). The apostle states that the “doers of the law will be justified” (Rom 2:13). Using the term in a context of law and judgment, the apostle does not say the doers of law become righteous, or make themselves righteous, but that they are pronounced or judged righteous before God. Paul is not teaching salvation or justification by works but maintains the basic meaning of the term “justify.” No man can fulfill the law of God perfectly and cannot receive a judgment or justification by work s. Nevertheless, even if he could fulfill its demands, man would not thereby make himself righteous, but would have to be pronounced righteous or innocent by the judge. In the phrase “justified by faith” (Rom 3:28), the term means to judge a sinner not guilty, that is, to acquit a guilty man rather than an innocent man. Justification is a reversal of God’s attitude toward the sinner because of his justification by faith in Christ. The sinner is declared free from guilt and the punishment of sin (cf. 2 Cor 5:19-21; Acts 13:38, 39). This is Paul’s unique use of the term justification, God’s acquittal of the sinner. A just man is not pronounced just because he is just, but a sinful man is pronounced just because his sins have been atoned for by the righteousness of Christ. In another illustration on this point, in Romans 2:26, Paul says that a man’s uncircumcision is regarded or counted as circumcision. In other words, one thing is simply counted for another, or a person is regarded as something he really is not. This is the basic, Scriptural concept of the idea of “to justify” or “justification.”

Accordingly, the old Lutheran theologian, Martin Chemnitz (Loc. II 250), writes of Paul’s teaching on justification; “Paul everywhere describes justification as a judicial process, because the conscience of the sinner accused by the divine Law before the tribunal of God, convicted and lying under the sentence of eternal condemnation, but fleeing to the throne of grace, is restored, acquitted, delivered from the sentence of condemnation, is received into eternal life, on account of obedience and intercession of the Son of God, the Mediator, which is apprehended and applied by faith.” According to this, justification signifies “to be pronounced righteous,” or “to be acquitted.”

3. Justification by works. In Romans 3, Paul answers the vital question, How is a man justified? How does he obtain a favorable judgment or acquittal? He writes: “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law” (vv. 27-29). Judging may be “not guilty” or “guilty,” whether rendered by God or by man, but in God’s spiritual courtroom, man is always guilty under sin; therefore he cannot justify or render himself innocent (4:13-15). Considering all possible circumstances among all peoples, Paul is forced to conclude that no man can gain acquittal by his works or by himself. If the Jew with all of his advantages could not achieve justification by works, certainly no one else could (4:1-5). The verdict pronounced on every man from God’s universal courtroom is, “Every mouth may be stopped (that is, if anyone protests God’s decision), and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law” (3:19, 20). A triple truth thus emerges regarding justification by works: Man, a sinner, cannot do sufficient good works to gain acquittal; man cannot render judgment on himself because he is always guilty; a just God cannot render him just by his works because he is a sinner by nature (7:21-25).

4. Justification and the righteousness of God. In the broader concept of justification in both OT and NT, the idea of the righteousness of God (dikaiosyne theou) is closely related to God’s judicial act of salvation. At times the terms justification by faith and righteousness of God can be used interchangeably. Paul speaks of this righteousness in Romans 3:21, “Now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, namely the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” The revelation of God’s wrath in the first part of Romans (1:18) is answered by the revelation of God’s saving righteousness in Romans 3. The word for righteousness in Paul is dikaiosyne which is a derivative of dikaio, “to justify.”

The well-known phrase “righteousness of God” as Paul uses it in 1:17, however, is not an attribute of God but the activity of God in saving man. The term is found again and again in the OT where God’s salvation in Christ is “witnessed by the law and the prophets” (3:21). Especially in the Psalms and in Isaiah the term pictures God’s grace in rescuing and delivering His people from sin and the oppressor. Psalm 98:2 (KJV), for example, has this message: “The Lord hath made known his salvation; his righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen.” In Isaiah 56:1, the words occur: “Thus says the Lord: Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come and my deliverance be revealed.” Paul teaches that this righteous activity of God, this saving act of God, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God saves men through the atonement of Christ and His merit earned on the cross is appropriated by faith. To have this righteousness is to be justified. The teaching is clear in Romans 3:22-26, esp. in the passage “The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ,” and in the words “Whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” All human righteousness and justification are excluded. God’s righteousness revealed in the Gospel is that act of grace by which He cancels the condemnation of His wrath upon man. It is not the attribute of God’s divine justice or holiness, but that righteousness which is the justification of man in Christ, by which He bestows salvation upon man, for Christ’s sake, through faith. Therefore, it is also faith-righteousness since it is God’s righteousness. Faith receives the righteous saving act of God and renounces and looks away from self to find its all-in-all in Christ.

5. Justification and the atonement of Christ. If God’s righteousness is the saving act of God in Christ for man’s salvation, then justification is closely related to our Lord’s atonement. In fact, Christ’s atonement is the grounds for justification. Christ’s person and activity is the justification or reconciliation with God and the basis of all individual justification. It is the only basis upon which God can and does justify the sinner (Rom 3:24; 8:1; 2 Cor 5:18-21). The atonement of Christ answers the question: “How can a just God acquit a sinner; yes, one who remains sinful even after he is justified?” Justification does not mean God “overlooks sin” or acts as if man were not a sinner. The sentimental view which conceives of God as a gracious old “grandfather” who winks at the sins of His “children,” denies the integrity of the true God and destroys any concept of justification. God’s justice and holiness demand payment for sin, and this penalty Christ paid in the atonement on the cross. Thus in justification God devised a plan whereby both His attributes of justice and His love manifested in grace for salvation of sinners are given full meaning.

By making Christ a substitute for man, God preserves His own justice and the same time achieves salvation for the sinner (Rom 3:26). It is un-Biblical, therefore, to speculate whether God could or does forgive without Christ. Sinful men “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth as an expiation by His blood.”

God is involved in the justification-atonement syndrome in three ways: (1) He is the Initiator, who first loved man. (2) He is the Instrument or Means, who gave Himself in the incarnate Christ as the once-for-all sacrifice for man’s sin. (3) He is also the Object of His saving work, who satisfied His wrath and justice over sin through Christ’s all-atoning sacrifice. At one and the same time God satisfies Himself and forgives the sinner. Therefore, only in Christ does God justify the sinner by imputing Christ’s perfect righteousness to the sinner who has none of his own (2 Cor 5:21). The Scriptures teach plainly that the wrath of God is visited upon by sinful man or else the Son of God must die for them. Either man dies or Christ dies. But God “shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).

6. Objective and subjective justification. Christ’s atonement covered all men’s sins—past, present, and future—and therefore justification may be described as objective or universal. By raising His Son from the dead, God pronounced absolution on the entire human race (1 John 2:2; Rom 4:25). Men unborn were all included in Christ’s sacrifice and God’s universal declaration of justification or absolution: “He chose us in him (Christ) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph 1:4). “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Objective justification does not mean universal salvation, but rather universal grace and forgiveness. God pronounced all men righteous in Christ but many men will not accept this forgiveness and many may not hear of it (10:14-17). It does mean, however, that our sins were declared forgiven even though we were not personally involved. The apostle teaches that as sin came upon all men through the death of Adam, so Christ’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal for men (4:12, 18). This is what prompted Paul’s statements that Christ “died for the ungodly,” and “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (5:6, 8). This is why the Church can and does proclaim the Gospel to the whole world (John 3:16; Rom 1:14-17).

Objective or universal justification is important for what may be called personal or subjective justification. It is clear that if God did not justify the ungodly, then man would be justified by works and there could be no justification by faith. Also, if God had not justified all mankind, the individual sinner might doubt that he was included. Subjective or personal justification is simply this: when a sinner hears the Gospel and the Holy Ghost thereby works faith in Christ in his heart, then Christ’s atonement becomes his and he personally possesses God’s forgiveness and belongs to the family of God. This birth experience makes him a Christian. But it should be kept that universal or objective justification and subjective justification are really not two separate acts of God. The latter is only the application of the former. Missionaries through the centuries have declared that universal and personal justification should give the Church great incentive to preach the Gospel to all men. All of God’s love and Christ’s great atonement on the cross mean nothing to anyone if he does not hear the Gospel. In such a case, the Gospel is just as meaningless as if Christ had not risen (1 Cor 15:17). It should be kept in mind that terms like “objective justification,” “subjective justification,” and “forensic act,” are not formulas the Bible uses, but were created by the Church to illustrate, emphasize, and protect the great truths of God’s salvation for man.

7. Justification and forgiveness. Justification is really legal picture language for forgiveness of sins. Christian theologians have considered justification above all else as forgiveness of sins and have used the two expressions interchangeably. Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son illustrates this concept dramatically (Luke 15:11-32). Paul says it is taught in the OT: “So also David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered’” (Rom 4:6, 7). God says to the sinner, “I do not count your transgressions against you. My Son has paid the punishment of your sin. I pronounce you righteous in My sight. I forgive you your sin.” This is what Christians do when they forgive each other their trespasses: “I do not hold your sin against you. I release you from obligation. I forgive you your sin. God has forgiven my sins, too.” In like manner Jesus taught Christians to pray, “Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Justification, then, is not only a judicial declarative act but it is at the same time a remissive act in which God actually forgives the sin of man. The demands of the law and condemnation to punishment also are satisfied in Christ and forgiven. Justification as forgiveness is more than a pardon from sin, but an actual forgiving of the sinner, who, though guilty, has his guilt and sin remitted in Christ.

8. Justification as imputation of righteousness. Justification as forgiveness of sin involves God’s act of imputation. Imputation is both negative and positive: in justification there is non-imputation of sin, and on the other hand, imputation of Christ’s righteousness. The merits of Christ are imputed to the sinner. He is given a righteousness alien to himself, namely, Christ’s righteousness just as his sins are not imputed or counted to him (2 Cor 5:19). Through faith the sinner receives the righteousness which Christ worked on the cross (Rom 3:25, 26). The Lutheran Confessions, for example, teach imputation very clearly: “The second matter in a mediator is, that Christ’s merits have been presented as those which make satisfaction for others, which are bestowed by divine imputation on others, in order that through these, just as by their own merits, they may be accounted righteous. As when my friend pays a debt for a friend, the debtor is freed by the merit of another, as though it were by his own. Thus the merits of Christ are bestowed upon us.” (The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article XXI, p. 347.)

9. Justification by faith. Because of the emphasis given faith in the Bible, Christians speak of justification esp. as justification by faith. The phrase “by faith” is just as vital as the term “justify” in understanding the nature of justification as taught in the Scriptures. Paul, for instance, in stating the theme of the Book of Romans, stresses faith without using the term “justification”: “The righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith” (Rom 1:17). The OT text Paul quotes here (Hab 2:4) also emphasizes the nature and function of faith: “The righteous shall live by his faith.” Faith and justification go hand and hand. Neither is meaningful or even possible without the other. We read in the OT that “Abraham believed the Lord,” but his faith is immediately linked to the words, “he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). In another epistle Paul also says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph 2:8, 9).

In justification, what exactly is the significance of the phrase “by faith”? Christians have always been aware of pitfalls at this point. Justifying faith is not faith in one’s works or merit; neither is it faith in a church, faith in an organization, faith in a certain system of theology, or knowing a certain set of facts. While saving faith is an act of the human intellect and will, it is much more than intellectual accepting the fact that God exists, that Christ died on the cross, etc.; saving faith is believing in the Gospel, relying on Christ’s merit, and receiving God’s declared righteousness.

For Paul, “by faith” essentially meant three things: (1) Salvation is without works. Faith and works in justification itself are mutually exclusive. Works never influence God in justifying a person; justification is “by grace.” Works always follow faith. No one can add to the atonement of Christ because Christ has done all (Gal 3:18, 23-29). (2) Faith in justification is the God-given instrument or means by which man accepts Gods’ justification of forgiveness in Christ. “By grace you have been saved through faith (dia pisteos)” (Eph 2:8). “The righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith” (Rom 1:17). Christ is to be “received by faith” (3:25). (3) Faith is always faith in Christ. It appropriates Christ’s work on the cross, which is the basis of justification or forgiveness. If faith justifies it does so only because it receives Christ’s merit. The righteousness of Christ is always intended for those who believe and all who believe receive this righteousness. Faith is essentially trust or confidence of the individual Christian, that full forgiveness is bestowed for Christ’s sake and that he is now a child of God possessing the Holy Spirit for a new life. Faith believes the Gospel. Faith is always personal; each person believes for himself. He himself relies on the promises of the Gospel. Thus faith is in no sense a moral achievement or ethical principle originating in man. If people call faith a good work, they do not mean that it merits favor or adds to Christ’s work or influences God in justifying a sinner, but that it receives Christ. Man believes, but faith is really God’s work in man, for “no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor 12:3 KJV). This is what the Reformation leaders meant when they stressed sola fide, by faith alone, and sola gratia, by grace alone. If justification is without works, and if God justifies sinners before they come to faith (as He did Abraham before he was circumcised), then faith’s role in justification is to receive the forgiveness offered in the Gospel as one’s own. The Bible never says man is justified on account of faith or because of faith but by or through faith. To speak in terms of the courtroom, as Paul does, when a guilty man is acquitted by faith all he can do is take the judge’s word for it, and walk out of the court room a free man, exceedingly grateful and humble.

The reality of this teaching staggers the human mind. Men have balked at the doctrine that God declares guilty men innocent, that He pronounces unrighteous sinners “not guilty as charged.” Men protest when they hear the teaching that God declares men to be what they are not and does so in strictest justice. They say, “In secular courts every effort is made to pronounce guilty men guilty and innocent men innocent. Every man must be responsible for his own sin. How can God do otherwise?” They label justification by faith as “a shocking doctrine,” “unjust,” “unworthy of God,” “unethical and immoral,” and “a license to sin.” Justification by faith is not reasonable, but theological. This is what it means to be justified by faith. It takes faith, which is the gift of God, to receive God’s forgiveness in this matter. Human protests and criticisms only document the fact that it is justification by faith.

Justification by faith is always total and complete. There are no degrees of justification as in sanctification. When God justifies, a man is forgiven completely, and that not in a long drawn-out process but in an instant. Also, all people are justified in the same way. Justification by faith is not regeneration, if this term is used to describe the entire life of a Christian; nor is it some psychosomatic or physical act which magically transforms an evil person into a righteous person. Justification by faith is complete and once-for-all; it involves nothing of injustice, since it is God who justifies man (Rom 3:26). If the judge himself has paid the debt, he has a perfect right to free the guilty person (8:31-34). This free forgiveness he gives in the Gospel and the sacraments by faith. These means of grace are God’s dynamic power to convey, present, and seal to us His forgiveness through faith (Gal 3:27; 1 Cor 6:11). The Lutheran Augsburg Confession presents this concise definition of what it means to be justified by faith: “also they teach that men be justified before God by their own strength, merit, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by his death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight” (Rom 3; 4). In summary, then, justification by faith should include these seven items:

Outline

10. Justification by faith as central doctrine of Christianity. Justification by faith has been called the apex of all Christian teaching, the central and cardinal truth of Christianity. Paul declares: “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). It is not only the central teaching of Paul, but also of Jesus and the apostles and of the prophets of the OT. In both the OT and NT, it is the heart of all of Gods’ mighty salvation acts. It is like the hub of a wheel from which extend all other doctrines of Scripture. Properly understood, all doctrines of the Scriptures serve the doctrine of justification by faith. It involves all the fundamental teachings of the law and Gospel and relates all truths of the Scriptures in one harmonious whole. If Christ is not God, how could He rise again? If He is not man, how could He die for man? If Christ were not man’s substitute, how could God justify a sinner, for then God could justify only the righteous man. If one denies that man is sinful, why bother with the Gospel or forgiveness? If one asks, what is the Church?, the answer must be “all those who believe in Christ for forgiveness and reconciliation.” This is why Dr. Martin Luther and the other reformers of the 16th cent. called the doctrine of justification “the doctrine of the standing or the falling of the church.” “This article is the head and cornerstone of the Church, which alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and protects the church; without it the church of God cannot subsist one hour. Neither can anyone teach correctly in the church or successfully resist any adversary if he does not maintain this article” (Luther’s Works 14, 168).

11. Justification and the OT. It has been said that justification by faith is only a NT doctrine or only “Pauline theology.” In reality, however, justification by faith is derived from the OT and simply spelled out in greater detail in the NT under various pictures. In both Heb. and Gr. the words “justify,” “justification,” “righteousness,” and related terms have a common background. The LXX uses the same Gr. terms as the NT. Paul did not invent either the words or their contents. From his epistles, we know that Paul was acquainted with both the Heb. OT and the Gr. LXX well.

Paul often quotes the OT for support of his doctrine of justification. An example is Psalm 51:4 which Paul quotes in Romans 3:4, “that thou mayest be justified in thy words.” Here the term “justify” is used of God in the declaratory or forensic sense, since one can scarcely say that the perfect God is in any way made righteous. Another outstanding example is Paul’s appeal to David in Psalm 32:1-3. Paul uses Romans 4:6-8 to show that justification by faith is imbedded in the Scriptures of the OT: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit (Ps 32:1, 2). Here David speaks of non-imputation of sin as parallel to forgiveness of sin. The statement is also in opposition to salvation by works. Nothing could be more illustrative of Paul’s thesis. The blessed man is not the man who has good works, but the one whose sins are not laid to his account. Even without Paul’s use of the terms in the context of his teaching on justification, the words in the Psalm by themselves clearly teach justification by faith as a declaratory act of God’s forgiveness.

Perhaps the crowning example of the teaching of justification by faith in the OT is the believing patriarch Abraham. It is stated in Genesis “And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). Even without Paul’s use of this passage to support his teachings in Romans 4:3, the statement is as clear as that of David. The outstanding aspect of Abraham and justification by faith is that the great hero of the Jewish people, whom all called “Father Abraham,” with all of his blessings and good works, still is recorded as believing and having it counted to him for righteousness. The example is somewhat the opposite of King David, who fell into sin and threw himself upon God’s mercy. Yet both men were justified by faith.

Several important items may be pointed out concerning Abraham as an example of justification by faith: (1) Justification is reckoning or imputing to a man something he did not possess before, namely righteousness before God.

(2) God reckoned righteousness to Abraham entirely without merit on Abraham’s part as seen by the fact that it took place long before Abraham was circumcised or before the Jewish law was given.

(3) It was, therefore, justification by faith, because he received righteousness through simple trust in God’s precious promise of the Messiah through his people.

(4) This led to his obedience to God so that by faith Abraham left the land of his fathers and went to a strange country (Heb 11:8). The essential features of justification by faith are to be found in embryo in simple short OT texts like this, particularly in Isaiah, the prophets and the numerous Messianic promises. Paul selected the examples of David and Abraham from among many others he could have used. After a thorough study of the concept of justification and related words in the LXX, Dr. Leon Morris concludes: “When we turn to those passages where the term justify occurs, there can be no doubt that the meaning is to declare rather than to make righteous.”

12. Jesus and justification. Did Jesus teach justification by faith? This is an important question, for it involves the four gospels. If Jesus and Paul taught a different doctrine on salvation, then there is such a thing as a special Pauline theology. The answer to this question is clearly in the affirmative when seen in the light of our Lord’s dealings with the Pharisees “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others” (Luke 18:9), and “who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts” (16:15). These words of Jesus to the Pharisees are also to the point: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (5:31, 32). Several outstanding examples from the Lord’s teaching might also be cited. In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (18:9-14), Jesus quotes the tax collector who had nothing to offer God as saying, “God be merciful (really, be propitiated for me) to me a sinner.” On this worst of sinners in the Jewish world, Jesus’ judgment is that “this man went down to his house justified (acquitted in the sight of God) rather than the other.” Another example is the story of the prodigal son (15:11ff.). The picture or figure here is that of the family and not of the court room. The father (who represents God the forgiving Father in heaven) acquits a wayward and guilty son, forgives him and reinstates him in the family without making any demands. Certainly the son had nothing to offer except to say “I’m sorry,” but even his sorrow was not what caused the father to justify him: His Father’s love had forgiven him long before he came home. The “elder brother” in the story did not understand the father’s verdict because he was thinking in terms of works, worthiness, and tradition. Human reason (like that of the older brother) does not comprehend this situation. That Jesus’ view of works, merit, grace and forgiveness was something radically different from the traditions of the Jews is apparent in His parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt 20:1-16). The rational mind questions the employer’s justice in giving the same pay for unequal number of hours of work but this is the very nature of justification by grace through faith. The Lord will offer salvation as He will since He is the Lord. He has chosen to do so by grace and faith, and one’s works will not influence His love. All of the grumbling in the world will not alter the situation these words describe: “‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last’” (20:12-15). Thus the Lord teaches the same amazing grace of God in Christ which Paul articulates and expands so well in his epistles. One may well infer that Paul and Jesus teach the same doctrine through different literary form and picture. Both Jesus and Paul preach this Gospel to both Gentiles and Jews because grace breaks down all barriers and makes all men equal before God, both in sin and in grace (Eph 2:1-22).

13. The relevance of justification for modern man. Men have justly criticized the doctrine of justification by faith, or forensic justification, when it simply remains “forensic” in the lives of Christians. Some have said that Paul, for instance, took the simple Gospel of the fatherhood of God and changed it into a drama of redemption through blood and antinomian justice. The point is made that Paul never heard of Darwin, Freud, or Dewey. What can a doctrine of forensic justification, through process of mind and intangible faith, say to modern man in an illogical world who has walked on the moon? “Who feels guilty?” they ask, “and who wants to be saved by works?” Involved is the fact of human sin and shortcoming, as well as man’s inhumanity to man, which cannot easily be written off as ignorance or something which can be cured by education and better social-economic arrangements. Since the doctrine of justification by faith is central to the Christian religion, the important question must be asked, “Is this Biblical diagnosis of sin and a cure through justification relevant and meaningful for modern man?”

The predicament of modern man, of which he does a great deal of talking and uses vast resources to remedy, is really of his own making, whether he traces evil back to Adam, or looks around at his own existence. After centuries of conflict and many ineffective solutions from the greatest minds, the man on the street today knows that his world is not a delusion. More and more men have come to realize that the problem of the world is a theological one. The modern predicament of man, found in various forms throughout the centuries, is the old predicament of sin of which the Scripture speaks. Justification by faith says that man is not hopeless and helpless in his situation, but that God has heard his cry and offers deliverance. Three important areas immediately suggest themselves: (1) For the meaningless and emptiness of many men today, the doctrine of justification by faith should mean “by the Gospel alone.” The heart of Biblical Revelation should teach mankind that God has not abandoned His creatures or His world. They are not cut off. He has adopted the sons of this world as His own, freely and fully out of a compassion He would give them to live by. He has not only reconciled man, but the cosmos to Himself (Rom 8:12-37; Eph 1:10). The importance of acceptance and “belonging,” of phsychotherapy, of “being” and “meaning”—answers to all these prominent current concerns may be found in God’s justification and reconciliation of the world. God has redeemed man from the slavery of self. He Himself has paid the supreme sacrifice for man. Men can now give up worship of man and things and turn to the loving God who gives meaning to all things. Man no longer need create his own purpose or his right to exist. God has done this for him in Jesus Christ. In the language of the day, “Man may stop trying to justify himself.”

(2) Just when modern man needs it most, justification by faith in Christ is a source of limitless spiritual and moral power for man in his world (Rom 1:16, 17). What often is called the doctrine’s greatest weakness is actually its greatest strength. Faith in God does not cast off Christian works, but is the source and power of the greatest work of all, namely, love. Luther said, “Good works do not make a good man but a good man does good works.” When opponents suggested to Paul that a doctrine of salvation by faith and not by works implied “Why not do evil that good may come?” (Rom 3:8), his firm answer was “By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? So that...we too might walk in newness of life” (6:1-4). Justification by faith means not only forgiveness of sins but the gift of the Holy Spirit (15:13). To be justified is to experience the power of God in one’s heart. Paul said: “I can do all things in him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). Justification by faith is the act of God which connects man to the dynamo of all power for all good in the world.

Justification by faith should lead to all the Christian virtues. If the teaching is empty and meaningless today, it is because it has not been completely seen and taught in all its dimensions, or has been accepted as a mere credal statement, that it is finally only legal fiction and man remains as before. Not only the act of justification, but also the results must be emphasized: peace, freedom, responsibility, compassion, the Spirit life, love, meekness, patience, strength to do well—the whole life of the Spirit of God. Luther once referred to the doctrine of justification as the periculosissima doctrina, the “most dangerous teaching,” because it has been used to allow license to sin and be irresponsible. He pleaded that the teaching be proclaimed so as to inspire gratitude to God, daily repentance, and resolve to serve God and man in a life of newness and obedience. Man has not been accounted righteous in some distant world, but here and now in the Church, and in and for our world.

(3) Justification by faith assures all men of God’s love and eternal life with God after death. He can face the future with confidence. Final judgment does not appall him, for he has already met his Judge and is forgiven. All systems of religion and philosophy which use or imply works for salvation result inevitably in wretchedness and tension of doubt. Those who trust in the doctrine of justification by faith, therefore, need no longer be the “devil’s martyrs.” In his commentary on Galatians, Dr. Luther used this pungent expression to describe those who worked harder trying to get to heaven by works than the wicked did in going to hell without them, only to arrive in the same place. When God says He justified the ungodly, all men know they are included. When God says to all men “It depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants” (Rom 4:16), all men know His grace is sufficient. When God takes man from eternity to eternity in justification, “those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified” (8:30), man receives the comfort which no human words can convey. Beset by difficulties of every kind, his hope remains: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers; nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (8:37-39). Modern man, like ancient man, is not dissimilar in his needs of this truth, power, and certainty of life as offered by God through justification by faith.

14. Summary of doctrine of justification. The following items or aspects may be considered a summary of the doctrine of justification as taught in the Holy Scriptures: (1) Justification is an act of God. In both the OT and NT, God is the initiator and actor in the Covenant and man’s salvation. It is a once-for-all act which is already accomplished in Christ (Rom 5:16-18). (2) Justification is a forensic act of God. God declares the sinner or the ungodly righteous in His sight (5:8). (3) Justification is based upon the atonement of Christ. God justifies a sinner for Christ’s sake. Without the substitutionary atonement of Christ God could not forgive the sinner all his sins without being unjust (3:24). (4) Justification is objective or universal. In the Gospel God offers the forgiveness of sins gained by Christ to the whole world (John 3:16). Personal or subjective justification is impossible without universal justification. (5) Justification is remission or forgiveness of sins. Justification is the same as forgiveness of sins. God does not count man’s sins against him but forgives them and sets him free (Rom 4:7, 8). (6) Justification is remission of punishment. The justified believer is declared free from the demands of the law and all condemnation resulting from sin against the law (3:25; 6:7).

It is more than pardon of sin, but a declaration by God. The sinner, though guilty, is relieved of the consequences of his guilt and sin.

(7) Justification is reconciliation of the sinner to God. Justification by faith restores the sinner to personal relationship with God as Father. Mere acquittal or remission of sin would be tantamount to discharging a criminal from the court room in alienation. Justification implies that God looks upon a sinner as if he had not sinned since he is again His child (Luke 15:1ff.; Gal 3:6; 2 Cor 5:19, 20). (8) Justification is imputation of God’s righteousness. Since the sinner has no righteousness of his own by which to be justified in God’s spiritual court, the salvation which Christ wrought through His life and works is imputed to the Christian as his own righteousness (Rom 3:25, 26; 2 Cor 5:19, 20). (9) Justification excludes salvation by works. Scripture not only teaches that man is justified without works, but also denounces any introduction of works into God’s justification (Rom 10:2, 3; Gal 3:10-14; 5:4). (10) Justification presupposes God’s universal grace. By grace God justified man and not because of the influence of man on God (Eph 1:1-4). God loves and therefore justifies all men alike (John 3:16). (11) Justification is by faith. The fact that justification is “by faith alone” does not exclude God’s grace, Christ’s work, or the means of grace (Word and Sacrament). Being justified by grace, for Christ’s sake, through the Gospel, is being justified by faith alone to the exclusion of works. Faith alone is the instrument of receiving justification so that works are excluded (Rom 3:28; Eph 2:8-10). (12) Justification is bestowed through the means of grace. Although God justifies man, He offers His justification through the Word of the Gospel and the sacraments. Justification is pronounced in the Word of the Gospel (Rom 10:5-12). (13) Just ification is followed by good works and a life of faith. Although the presence of good works is not the condition to receive justification, justification through the Gospel by faith offers the power of the Holy Spirit in men’s lives so that they lead a life of good works (James 2:14, 15; Rom 6:1-6). (14) Justification is central to all Christian teaching. The teachings of God; the person and work of Christ, sin, anthropology, Word and Sacrament, law and Gospel, are all involved in the doctrine of justification. In this broad sense, “justification by faith” is theological shorthand for the various terms and concepts of Scripture to describe the entire action of God for man’s salvation. See Atonement.

Bibliography L. Petersen, The Doctrine of Justification by Faith the Leitmotif of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (Thesis 1940); J. Fritz, Justification and Sanctification In the Daily Life of the Christian (1948); F. Kramer, Through Justification to Sanctification (1952); G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Justification (1954); A. Hunter, Interpreting Paul’s Gospel (1954); J. Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied (1955); L. Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (1955); H. Hammann, Justification by Faith in Modern Theology (1957); J. Murray, The Epistle To The Romans, Vol. I. (1959); H. Schmid, Doctrinal Theology of The Evangelical Lutheran Church (1961); Lutheran World Federation Assembly, A Study Document on Justification (1963); H. Stob, C. Bergenhoff, G. Forell, J. Leith, A Reexamination of Lutheran and Reformed Traditions III: Justification and Sanctification (1965); H. Huxold, Is Justification For Moderns? (1965); Arndt, Greek-English Lexicon (194-197); J. F. Crosby, From Religion To Grace; The Doctrine of Justification (1967); W. Dantine, Justification of the Ungodly (1968); R. Preus, Lutheran Trends in Regard to Justification (1968).