Justification by Faith

Posted: October 23rd, 2005 | Author: stauffer | Filed under: Articles

We live at a time when fewer and fewer people are in tune with and versed in Bible terminology. Words like “sanctification,” “redemption,” “righteousness,” “reconciliation,” and “salvation” in their biblical uses have become a foreign language to many folks. So it is with the words “justify” or “justification.”

These words all have basic meanings, but they also have specialized uses in the context of God’s plan of human redemption. “Justify,” for example, is a legal or judicial term that means “not guilty.” It is an acquittal – a verdict of innocence declared by the court to one who has been indicted for a crime.

In the Bible it has this same sense but is used in the context of men who have sinned against God. And that includes all of us. The Bible says we all have sinned; that none of us is righteous (Rom 3:9-10, 23). It also tells us that this sin has separated us from God and fellowship with God forever – unless we are justified (see Isaiah 59:1-2; 1 John 1:5-7; Ephesians 2:1-3)

Justified, in this setting, retains its essential meaning of “not guilty.” To be restored to fellowship with God man must be acquitted of his transgressions of God’s law. God is light, in him is no darkness, and to be reconciled to him the darkness of sin must be removed from man’s soul.

Justification is one of the major themes of Paul’s letter to the Romans. There the apostle says sinners are “freely justified by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). He adds later that man is “justified by faith,” which he defines at the beginning of the letter as “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 5:1; 16:26).

This is the point James makes in his epistle when he uses the word “works” to denote the “obedience of faith.” He says: “Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.” The context of these “works” is the obedience of Abraham to God’s commandment to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. As Abraham obeyed God so must we to be counted righteous by justification (James 2:21-24).

The importance of obedience is stressed by Paul’s point that justification comes by “grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). Sinners enter Christ Jesus when by faith they are baptized into him (Galatians 3:26-27). Those who are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death, where his blood was shed. They then arise from that baptism a new creature who walks in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4; see 2 Corinthians 5:17).

Only by justification through the obedience of faith can men have peace with God (Romans 5:1). Have you by faith been baptized into Christ?

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