Question 37:
What is justification?
Answer:
Justification is an act of God's free grace, by which he pardons all our sins,
and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ
imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
Day 1:
Justified Freely by Grace (Pardoned and Accepted)
Ephesians
1:7, Romans 3:24
The
first benefit of our effectual calling that we will look at this week is
justification. Justification is one of those big theological terms that we are
very glad that we have, but really do not know what it is. We saw last week a brief definition of
justify which is to render someone righteous.
We must be rendered righteous because our own righteousness is less than
what God requires (Isaiah 64:6). His
purpose is that we (the elect) be “holy and without blame before Him in
love” (Ephesians 1:4). Romans 3:9-20 well establishes our sinfulness
an actually our desire not to even seek God and His righteousness, though we do
have a desire to justify ourselves before Holy God (Luke 10:29). Jesus said, “that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and
Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) Everyone in Jesus’ day thought that the
Pharisees defined perfection and godliness.
Thus it is cannot be an effort on our part, it must be all of God.
This starts us with Ephesians 1:6 where we see the grace
of God at work who “made us accepted in the Beloved.” It literally took an act of God’s grace to
save us. In verse 7 we see that an
integral part of justification is redemption.
The Greek here is apolutrosis meaning
release by payment of ransom, deliverance, liberation by payment of
ransom. God’s justice requires a payment
for our sins. In Leviticus 17:11, God
establishes this fact in law and then in Hebrews Chapter 9, we see that
Christ’s blood not only seals the New Covenant, but also purifies our sin “once
for the sins of many.” (Tomorrow we will
speak more about the transaction that Jesus completed upon the cross.)
Further Paul goes on to define redemption as forgiveness
of sins. In the Greek, this word is aphesis defined as release from bondage
or imprisonment, forgiveness or pardon of sins as if they were never committed,
remission of the penalty (of sin). Thus
God provided fully for our salvation through His Son Christ Jesus. Then Paul adds that this redemption came
through the “riches of His Grace.” We
have looked at the Greek charis for
grace before meaning God’s display of love toward us by His mercy alone
according to His own good pleasure. Paul
with the description of “riches of His grace” shows us the extent, sufficiency,
and efficiency of His grace. Riches here
is the Greek ploutos mean wealthy,
abundance, fullness. God’s grace is
complete. In other words, whatever is
necessary for us to come to God in faith, God Himself can richly supply. For God’s chosen there is no one that has
sins or sinfulness that exceeds His grace.
In Romans 3:24, we see also that this grace is applied
freely for our justification. The word
freely is dorean meaning freely,
undeservedly. Simply put God’s
justification is unmerited favor. There
is nothing we can do or attempt to do to earn justification. We can only accept what is freely offered to
us by faith in Christ Jesus, which we will discuss on Day 3. (Note that we were given the Greek last week
for justify as dikaioo.)
The last point is to not overlook the word in the Greek
autos that shows us who possesses our justification, our redemption, and our
pardon of sin. In Romans 3:24 it is by
His (autos) grace, in Ephesians 1:7 it is through His (autos) blood, according
to the riches of His (autos) grace. It
is completely, totally, fully, an act of God’s grace. It is efficiently, sufficiently, and freely
bestowed upon all that believe. How can
we not but praise, honor, an glorify Almighty God with our words and deeds?
Discuss the following with your family:
1.
Define
justification.
2.
Define
redemption.
3.
Discuss why the
blood of Christ was necessary for our redemption.
4.
Define
forgiveness.
5.
Stress the
futility in seeking our salvation on our own.
Day 2:
Christ’s Righteousness Imputed to Us
2
Corinthians 5:21, Romans 5:19
The
topic of today’s lesson concerns what many have called the “Great Exchange”: Christ’s
righteousness for our sins. We mentioned
already in the first lesson the latter part of this exchange in Christ’s
redemption and forgiveness of our sins.
In the Old Testament sacrifices (which were a shadow of Christ’s
atonement to come) there are a series of sacrifices for sin. Central was the sin offering itself
(Leviticus 4, 16). The sin offering
included two components. A sacrifice for
sins where the bull was killed signifying substitutionary death (which Jesus
did once for all on the cross). Also, a
second sacrifice was offered called the scapegoat. The sins of the people would be symbolically
laid upon this bull then he was set free symbolizing imputed sin from the
people to the sacrifice which Jesus also did Himself on the cross (forgiveness
of sins).
There
was yet another type of offering that appears to be represented in imputed
righteousness which is the peace offering (Leviticus 3). The peace offering was given to symbolize
restored fellowship between man and God.
This is the closest picture that we receive of Christ’s righteousness
imputed to us for it is that right standing before God that has restored our
fellowship with the Father and thus gives us peace (reconciliation).
Paul
begins in the verses prior to 2 Corinthians 5:21 discussing the ministry of
reconciliation that we have as believers (verse 12). Compelled as Paul says by the “love of
Christ” (verse 14). Concluding that we
live for the One who died for us. In
verse 17 we see that we are “a new creation in Christ” that is to say we now
live for God “who has reconciled us to Himself.” In verse 19, we even see the first part of
the Great Exchange in which Christ is reconciling the world to Himself taking
to Himself the trespasses of sinners.
In
verse 21, we again see how justification is fully an act of God: “He made Him
who knew no sin to be sin for us.” In
the Old Covenant the priest would choose and inspect the perfect lamb for the
sacrifice. In the New Covenant, God
Himself chose His own Son who “knew no sin” to be the perfect sacrificial
lamb. We see here that He is our
scapegoat made (Greek: poeio) by
God. The rest of the verse shows us the
imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us.
Parenthetically, we should not be confused by the ”might become” (Greek:
ginomai, subjunctive mood) that
speaks of the potentiality of a future event.
This does not mean those reconciled might receive imputation of
righteousness, it simply states that God’s past action results in a future act
yet to come (especially speaking of potential for the sinner, since we plead to
all sinners some who will receive and some who will not). The word for righteousness here is diakiosune meaning the way we ought to
be, the condition of being acceptable to God, virtue, purity of life,
rightness. God fully accepts the
righteousness of Christ as ours. We
stand before God, as we should; we are reconciled, at peace, and able to have
fellowship with the Father all because of Christ.
Very
briefly, Romans 5:19 gets to the historical cause of our sin problem. The word used for disobedience here is parakoe which implies disobedience even
though clear instruction was given. Adam
sinned in full knowledge which resulted in many (Greek: poulos = a great number) being made sinners (Greek: hamartolos =
devoted to sin, pre-eminently sinful).
All are sinners by Adam’s original sin, but we also sin in full
knowledge as well, thus we are without fault.
But it was by one Man’s obedience that many will be made righteous. The positive form hupakoe is used for obedience implying that Jesus heard or knew
fully what He was asked to do and still obeyed.
As Paul said in Philippians 2:8, “…He became obedient to the point of
death, even the death of the cross.” So
the last of the Great Exchange seen here is our disobedience for Christ’s
obedience the result being His righteousness imputed to us.
Discuss
the following with your family:
1.
Look up passages
in Leviticus concerning sacrifices. Why
did these have to be offered continually?
Did they cleanse of sin or simply cover them?
2.
Define
righteousness.
3.
Do you see a
change in your own self in desire and action to obey God? What compels you to obey God?
4.
Include in your
prayer tonight as a family thanksgiving to God for the Great Exchange of our
sin for Christ’s righteousness through faith in Him.
Day 3:
Justification Received by Faith Alone
Philippians
3:9, Galatians 2:16
Justification
is truly a gift of God to us and we must receive it through faith alone. This is to say that faith in Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior is the only way by which we can be justified (John 14:6). He has secured it by His finished work at
Since
the Reformation (and before as well), the debate has been to the source of
saving faith. Is it of God or is it of
man? Do all men have potential faith to
believe, but only some by their free will choose to exercise it? Or are the elect alone given faith necessary
to believe by God Himself? Ephesians 2:8
gives us the primary scripture, which says that both grace and faith are gifts
of God. Free will faith theologians
argue over the structure and gender of the phrase in the Greek saying that “it
is a gift of God” refers only to the first part of the phrase “For by grace you
are saved,” but does not apply to the “through faith” part of the phrase. A simple reading shows that the entire phrase
is connected.
There
is also a logical argument given by free will faith theologians which says that
faith is not “a work” added to salvation for it is not a work of the law. They say that it is something that we “exercise”
not something that we “do.” Ephesians
2:10 clarifies this error by showing that works result from faith; works that
“God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Further, James 2 inextricably relates faith
and works. It is a work that validates
faith. The work completely and
sufficiently must be from God. Faith by
itself is empty. I may say that I have
faith in air travel, but I take a seat on the bus. This is empty faith. Full faith requires a work, namely I take a
seat on the plane. The act of sitting on
the plane is a validation of faith, therefore, a work. Thus only God could pre-ordain faith and
render it to us. In the end we must
understand that even exercise of faith is a great work. That is why we sweat when we exercise.
Now
let us look at our scriptures. I will
not be so meticulous here for most of the teachings of imputed righteousness we
have already covered. Our focus today is
on how we are justified, how we obtain righteousness. In Philippians 3:9 and Galatians 2:16, we see
how this justification is not attained: not by keeping the law for there is no
righteousness in the law. It is not
something we do for we can only do enough to be righteous before God by being
perfect in the law which we know to be impossible (Romans 3:10-12, 23). In other words we cannot merit unmerited
favor. Secondly, the law itself has no
power unto justification. The law only
shows our imperfection. We cannot keep
it. The Law is only the beginning point
of our effectual calling to demonstrate to us our great need of a savior
(Romans 4:15).
Then
we see in these two verses how justification is obtained or received: “through
faith in Christ,” “from God by faith,” “by faith in Jesus Christ,” “we believed
in Christ Jesus,” “justified by faith in Christ.” The word in the Greek is pistis and believed is from the same root, pisteuo. Both mean basically
to put confidence in, conviction of the truth of anything. Of course, here we have justification by and
through confidence in Christ Jesus as the One who has secured our salvation and
conviction that causes us to leave all else for Him.
The
words “by” and “through” show us how faith works. By is ek
in the Greek, a preposition relating to origin and through is dia in the Greek, a preposition denoting
the channel of an act. Now justification
originates in faith, that is, it is applied to us and received by us through
faith. However, it is not the beginning
point of our salvation. Remember the
Golden Chain of Salvation from Romans 8:28-29 that salvation itself originates
in God’s foreknowledge, then His predestination, then His calling, then
justification comes through faith. But
also by seeing that justification is through faith we see that it begins before
and continues after the application of justification. John Gill uses the illustration of water that
runs through a bridge must also run before and after it. Christ is the author (originator) and
finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
Thus, He stands front and center to guide us from conviction through
faith to our justification. We must be
convicted of sin out of the work of God and then we must place our trust
(faith) only in the finished work upon the cross for our own
justification. There is a verbal act of
faith (Romans 10:9-10) and an outward manifestation of faith (James 2).
Discuss
the following with your family:
1. Evaluate
personally if you are striving for good woks to justify yourself before God or
if you are simply honoring the God who has graciously saved you by your
obedience to serve Him.
2. This
is a good time to share the Gospel with your family. Perhaps your children are in the process of
being drawn to Christ and are to the point of professing Christ. Or perhaps they already profess Christ
verbally, but lack evidence in their conduct.
Remind them of the inseparable connection between faith and
manifestation of faith in works of righteousness.