Each person who responds to God’s grace (Titus 2:11) and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ (Rom 5:8; 1 John 2:2) by confession of sin, remorse, repentance, faith and obedience instantly receives the great gift of salvation. This gift includes but is not limited to the following:
- Redemption (Rom 3:24; 8:23) - You are freed from the bondage of sin for the first time in your life.
- Forgiveness (Mat 6:9-15; 1 John 1:8-10) – You are forgiven your sins by God.
- Justification (Rom 3:21-26) – You are declared righteous by God; this legal declaration is valid because Christ died to pay the penalty for your sin and lived a life of perfect righteousness that can in turn be imputed to you.
- Adoption (Rom 8:23; Gal 3:26; 1 John 3:2) – You are a joint heir with Jesus to the Kingdom of God.
- Regeneration (John 3:1-21) - The Holy Spirit makes known to you the will of God and helps you discern truth from lie. He occupies and purifies all the rooms of your heart into which He is invited. For the first time in your life you are not a prisoner of sin. You are free to pursue the path of righteousness. This is the first day of your Christian life and you are a new creature in Christ. This is the mechanism of your redemption.
- Sanctification (Heb 6:1; 1 Pet 1:13-16) - You are led by the Holy Spirit along the path toward holiness; this is a lifetime journey.
- Reconciliation (Eph 2:11-22) - You are reconciled with all other believers.
- Unification (Eph 3:1-11) – You are united with all believers in the Church of Jesus Christ.
- Glorification (Rom 8:30) – You will complete the journey along the path of sanctification when your mission in this life is done.
For many, Justification is the most difficult to understand. One reason may be the antiquated, archaic, anachronistic syntax of early English translations of Scripture. Consider the following.
What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (Rom 4:3, NIV)
Consider Abraham: He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. (Gal 3:6, NIV)
In other words, Abraham believed, and in response, God declared Abraham righteous. But as we travel back in time, the meaning becomes somewhat more difficult to extract.
For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. (Rom 4:3, KJV)
Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. (Gal 3:6, KJV)
Watson, v2, p 238 - 239 records many older translations.
Abraham committed himself unto God by believing, and this very thing was imputed to him for righteousness (Rom 4:3, Bullinger)
It was imputed unto him for righteousness, that is, that very faith of Abraham was imputed to him for righteousness, while he was yet uncircumcised. (Gal 3:6, Bullinger)
Christian righteousness is an affiance of faith in the Son of God, which affiance is imputed unto righteousness for Christ’s sake. (Gal 3:6, Luther)
The faith whereby Abraham believed God promising, was imputed unto him for righteousness. (Rom 4:3, Hunnius)
Some early English translations seem to suggest that faith is assigned to us by God in response to our righteousness instead of righteousness being assigned to us because of our faith. But not all authors totally confuse the issue. Haymo, writing on Rom 4:3 about the year 840 AD, said,
“Because he believed God, it was imputed unto him for righteousness, that is, unto remissions of sins, because by that faith, wherewith he believed, he was made righteous.”
For clarification, consider the explanation of H. Orton Wiley.
[Justification] is applied to one who is accused, is guilty and condemned. How can such a one be justified? In one sense only – that of pardon. By the act of God, his sins are pardoned for Christ’s sake, his guilt canceled, his punishment remitted, and he is accepted before God as righteous. He is therefore declared righteous, not by legal fiction, but by judicial action, and stands in the same relation to God through Christ, as if he had never sinned. This is evangelical justification, and is possible only through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…That justification means the pardon or remission of sins, is not only a tenet of Arminianism, but is the ‘vital fact’ in the teaching of all orthodox Protestant divines…But whether as an act or as a state, the word in its true connotation, is never used in the sense of making men righteous, but only in the sense of declaring or pronouncing them free from the guilt and penalty of sin, and therefore righteous…Justification is a relative change, and not the work of God by which we are made actually just and righteous. Justification being the pardon of sin, we must guard against the notion that it is an act of God by which we are made actually just and righteous. (cf. Watson, v2, p 215) Here also we must refer to Mr. Wesley’s clear and discriminating thought on this subject. ‘But what is it to be justified? What is justification? ...It is evident from what has been already observed that it is not the being made actually just and righteous. This is sanctification; which is, indeed, in some degree, the immediate fruit of justification, but, nevertheless, is a distinct gift of God, and of a totally different nature. The one implies what God does for us through His Son; the other what He works in us by His Spirit.’ (Wesley, Sermon on Justification by Faith) (Wiley, v2, p 383- 386)
Justification is one of the amazing gifts of God which you receive the instant you confess your sins with remorse in your heart, desire to repent, believe you are saved from eternal damnation by faith, the grace of God and the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ and seek to be obedient. In other words, you receive this gift the instant you receive the great gift of salvation; it is a part of salvation. Justification is a declarative act in the mind of God, which changes the way God perceives you and is given as part of the great gift of salvation.
God does not commune with sinful creatures; in order to commune with you, God must pronounce you free from the guilt and penalty of sin, and therefore righteous.
(See also Section 3.3 and 12.7 of Theology Corner)
