Justification By Faith Defined

The doctrine of justification deals with the question of how God, who is absolutely holy (Ex. 15:11; Lev. 11:44; Ps. 22:3; Isa. 6:3; 1 Pet. 1:15; Rev. 4:8) and who demands ethical perfection in His creatures, can allow men who are guilty of breaking His law into His presence and fellowship. Two problems must be resolved before men who are guilty can have eternal life with God. First, the penalty due for sin must be paid in full. God’s nature and law requires satisfaction for all disobedience. Second, God requires of all men a perfect obedience. Shedd writes: “Whoever justifies the ungodly must lay a ground both for his delivery from hell, and his entrance into heaven. In order to place a transgressor in a situation in which he is dikaios, or right in every respect before the law, it is necessary to fulfill the law for him, both as penalty and precept. Hence the justification of the sinner comprises not only pardon, but a title to the reward of the righteous. The former is specially related to Christ’s passive righteousness, the latter to his active. Christ’s expiatory suffering delivers the believing sinner from the punishment which the law threatens, and Christ’s perfect obedience establishes for him a right to the reward which the law promises.”¹ When a person believes in Jesus Christ, God the Father in the heavenly court declares that that person is righteous solely on the basis of Christ’s full satisfaction for sin and perfect obedience to the law.      Justification is not something that occurs in man, nor is it a process. It refers to the legal, judicial and forensic declaration of God. “It is to declare forensically that the demands of the law as a condition of life are fully satisfied with regard to a person, Acts 13:39; Rom. 5:1, 9; 8:30-33; I Cor. 6:11; Gal. 2:16; 3:11.”² The ground of justification is Christ’s sacrificial death and perfect obedience to the law (i.e., “the righteousness of God,” Rom. 3:21). When a man by faith lays hold of Jesus Christ and His merits, God imputes that person’s guilt for sins past, present and future upon Christ on the cross. God also imputes Christ’s perfect righteousness to that sinner. The Father then declares that man righteous or just in the heavenly court. Because Christ has removed the guilt of that man’s sins past, present, and future legally before God, it is as though that man never committed sin. He is white as snow (Isa. 1:18). His record is perfect. Judicially, he is just as righteous and perfect as Jesus Christ. Since Christ’s perfect obedience is imputed to him, he has eternal life because Christ merited it for him.