Justification by Faith
A visitor came to my site wanting to know which came first regeneration or justification. I believe both come at same time. The scripture points out that through Jesus' we are justified, sanctified, made righteous and redeemed (1 Cor 1:30). Justification is a change in a man’s relation or standing before God. It has to do with relations that have been disturbed by sin. We have been reconciled to God through Christ. Justification is a change from guilt and condemnation to acquittal and acceptance. Regeneration has to do with the change of the believer’s nature; justification, with the change of his standing before God. When saved we have a right standing with God and also a new nature also.
| 1. The forgiveness of Sin. | 3. Not By Works of the Law |
| 2. The Imputation of Christ's Righteousness. | 4. The Condition of Justification |
It is difficult for us to understand God’s feeling towards sin. To us forgiveness seems easy, largely because we are indifferent towards sin. But to a holy God it is different. God's holiness demanded that sin be dealt with. But now through Jesus sin has fully been dealt with. (Rom 3:24) declares we can be freely justified through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. “Freely” denotes that it is granted without anything done on our part to merit or deserve it. From the contents of the epistle up to this point it must be clearly evident that if men, sinful and sinning, are to be justified at all, it must be “by his free grace.”
Now God can be just and the justifier of all who believe upon His Son (Romans 3:26).
Jesus was our substitute on the Cross, the innocent for the guilty - He who knew no sin was made sin that we might be made the righteousness of God. Jesus never sinned He was the spotless Son of God pure, holy undefiled, and never knew unbroken fellowship with His Father who was is and always will be holy. The angels in heaven do always cry day and night holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty. For the first three hours on the Cross the sun was shinning bright, but the second three there was a darkness that fell upon the face of the earth such as never before. From 9:00 in the morning to 12:00 noon the Father and Son still had fellowship, but from 12:00 noon to 3:00 o'clock the Father turned away as His Son was made sin, and the very sins of the world was laid on Him, and Jesus cried My God My God why has thou forsaken Me. He was forsaken that you and I might not be forsaken. He suffered an eternal damnation on my and your behalf. Some how some way He who was God and Man and had created time itself suffered eternally for you and I on the Cross. His resurrection signified the completion of that great eternal work He came to do on the Cross. Thereby his resurrection declared our Justification (Rom 4:25).
(Joh 3:16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Jesus on the Cross fully met the demands of Gods law and also fully expressed Gods love for lost sinners. The O.T. sacrifices could never take away sin , but Jesus did. And no one including Satan could accuse God of being unjust or unfair because of His seemingly passing over of sins in the Old Testament time.
In justification, then, all our sins are forgiven, and the guilt and punishment thereof removed (Acts 13:38, 39; Rom. 8:1). God sees the believer as without sin and guilt in Christ (Num. 23:21; Rom. 8:33, 34). Back to the Top
2. The Imputation of Christ's Righteousness.
There is also the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ to the sinner. His righteousness is “unto all and upon all them that believe” (Rom. 3:22). See Rom. 5:17-21; 1 Cor. 1:30. For illustration, see Philemon 18.
A judge in a criminal court can pardon a man for his crime, but not reinstate him into a position that declares him to have never committed a crime. But that's what God does for the person He justifies. You and I can never become more justified or more forgiven than when we first got saved, although we can grow in grace. We are told to put on Christ and put off the old man and to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.
In justification we become friends of God just as Abraham (2 Chron. 20:7, James 2:23).
The righteousness which we are saved by is “the righteousness of God,” (Rom 3:20-26). Only the righteousness of Christ could suffice. Our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). When Jesus said it is finished on the Cross our salvation was complete if we continue to believe. He completed the righteous requirements of the law! The righteousness of God is the perfect fulfillment which the law demands, it is impossible that any other righteousness or obedience could do.
This now manifested righteousness has brought in a new dispensation of which the apostle declared to be a ministration of righteousness (2 Cor 3:9). As in Paul's epistle to the Romans also to the Philippians he wrote that it is the very righteousness of God by faith and not his own, nor of the law (Philippians 3:9). There is other scriptures as well that speak of the truth, and power of the Gospel being the theme, "the Righteousness of God". In (Rom 1:16) Paul speaks of the gospel being the power of God unto salvation, but in in the next verse he adds (Rom 1:17) For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. How many of us when asked about the Gospel would say it’s the righteousness of God revealed as Paul did. The righteousness of Christ has been provided for us. The Jews were ignorant of the righteousness of God and went about to establish there own righteousness, and did not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God (Rom 10:3).
The righteousness of God
provided for the salvation of sinners, differs from all other righteousness that
ever was or can ever be performed. It differs entirely from the righteousness of
men or angels, for it is the righteousness not of creatures but of the Creator.
“I the Lord have created it,” (Isa 45:8). My favorite
scripture is
Rom. 3:20—“Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” “Therefore” implies that a judicial trial has taken place and a judgment pronounced. At the bar of God no man can be counted righteous in His sight because of his obedience to law. The burden of the Epistle to the Romans is to set forth this great truth. As a means of establishing right relations with God the law is totally insufficient. There is no salvation by character. What men need is salvation from character.
The reason why the law cannot justify is here stated: “For by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The law can open the sinner’s eyes to his sin, but it cannot remove it. Indeed, it was never intended to remove it, but to intensify it. The law simply defines sin, and makes it sinful, yea, exceedingly sinful, but it does not emancipate from it. Gal. 3:10 gives us a further reason why justification cannot take place by obedience to the law. The law demands perfect and continual obedience: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” No man can render a perfect and perpetual obedience, therefore justification by obedience to the law is impossible. The only thing the law can do is to stop the mouth of every man, and declare him guilty before God (Rom. 3:19, 20).
Gal. 2:16, and 3:10, Rom. 3:28, are very explicit in their denial of justification by law. It is a question of Moses or Christ, works or faith, law or promise, doing or believing, wages or a free gift. Back to the Top
4. The Condition of Justification
Gal. 2:16—“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ,” or as the Revised Version margin has it: “But only through faith in Jesus Christ. The best of men need to be saved by faith in Jesus Christ, and the worst need only that. As there is no difference in the need, neither is there in the method of its application. On this common ground all saved sinners meet, and will stand forever.
(We are justified by faith alone). We can never merit salvation by the law of God or good works. No rule or standard, not even the 10 commandments can save us, only Jesus. There is nothing you or I can do but come to God in faith in the finished work of Christ.
The first step, then, in justification is to despair of works; the second, to believe on him that justifieth the ungodly.
We are not to slight good works, for they have their place, but they follow, not precede justification. The workingman is not the justified man, but the justified man is the workingman. Works are not meritorious, but they meet with their reward in the life of the justified. The tree shows its life by its fruits, but it was alive before the fruit or even the leaves appeared. Summing up we may say that men are justified judicially by God (Rom. 8:33); meritoriously by Christ (Isa. 53:11); mediately by faith (Rom. 5:1); evidentially by works (James 2:14, 18-24). Back to the Top