JUSTIFICATION

          Justification is an essential truth (or doctrine) in the Christian faith. It is essential because a correct understanding of the principles of this truth is absolutely necessary to assurance of salvation. Without a proper understanding of this truth, those who would seek to approach God would always be held in suspense; for “how should man be just with God”? (Job 9:2) Therefore those who know themselves to be sinners (in themselves in their character and conduct) can never rest and be at perfect peace in the presence of a thrice holy God. To err in this particular is to miss Christ, and that is to miss salvation by Christ. God has only one method whereby he receives his people as just and that is by the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ to their account, as though they had conducted themselves in perfect righteousness all their days. First then, let us start with a definition of justification.

Justification defined; Justification is a gracious act of God, wherein, God declares the object of that work, perfectly; (1) righteous and (2) blameless, without guilt in his sight as judge. It is an act of God in free grace, therefore not the result of merit in those whom God will justify. It is an act of God as judge, whom he will, he declares righteous and not guilty, for the sake of Jesus Christ. It is an act of God according to the edict of divine law, for the law of God recognizes the work of a surety and redeemer, (a substitute) to stand in the judicial place of others.

            Justification, its cause, the first cause of justification is the eternal and immutable purpose and love of God. God is immutable, he never changes, those who he loves are those he has always loved and will love to all eternity. Therefore he says “yea I have loved you with an everlasting love” Jeremiah 31:3 and “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood” Revelation 1:4. Fallen mortals are in themselves unlovely and unlovable, Romans 3:10-19. God has loved a people in Jesus Christ from everlasting, for the loved of God is in Christ Jesus our lord, Romans 8:39. God’s love always brings blessedness to the objects of his love and his love never fails to bless its object. The love of God cannot fail for it is boundless, and has all the divine attributes to bring about its purpose. Consider I John 3:17, But who so hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? Now does God have all that is necessary to bless those whom he loves? Yes of course; this is answerable to “who that hath this world’s good” in the verse just referenced. Does God know our need? Yes certainly; answerable to “and seeth his brother have need”. Then will God shut up his bowels of compassion against them? Certainly not, for if God did shut up his bowels of compassion against those who he loved, how could it be, that the love of God dwelt in him?  God’s children have always been his children in the covenant of grace, they have always been blessed in the covenant, and have always been chosen in Jesus Christ, and have always been beloved in Christ. Now even though they fell into sin in Adam, they did not lose their covenant interest in Christ, nor did the love of God cease toward them. It was not the love of God that was affronted, by our fall in Adam, but his justice. And because they are fallen in Adam, the curse of divine law and justice is an obstacle to the blessing of divine grace.

            Justification is a legal implement or means, its purpose is to honor God’s law and to satisfy his justice. The children of God having fallen in Adam, with the rest of the race of men, had become liable to the curse of the law of God. In order to deliver the children of God from this curse, God in covenant arrangements made before the foundation of the world, provided a surety for his children. The children’s surety was to stand in the judicial place of the children. Standing in the judicial place of the children, the surety would both fulfill the obedience required of the children and endure the curse to which the children were liable Hebrews 7:22. All the surety accomplished, all he did, all he suffered, all he was in himself in his office as the surety, was to be and is imputed to those for whom he is surety, for our righteousness is “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” Jeremiah 23:6. Likewise the name of the church, his children and bride of Christ, is “The Lord our righteousness” Jeremiah 33:16. This surety of the everlasting covenant of grace is the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ, I Corinthians 2:8. By his suretyship the Lord Jesus Christ has procured eternal blessed ness for the children of promise (Galatians 4:28). All the righteousness that is in Jesus Christ, is ascribed to, and laid to the account of the children of promise, it is the righteousness of God, Romans 1:17; 3:21, 22; It was established by Jesus Christ, in his entire mediation of the covenant, and that righteousness is imputed (by the Father) to the children when they are given faith, by which they receive that righteousness. Standing in public office for the children of the covenant, Jesus Christ fulfilled the law of God, (Matthew 5:17and18) by his obedience and death.

            Accordingly; all the children of God have been executed under sentence of God’s law in the body of Jesus Christ, for “I am crucified with Christ” Galatians 2:20; and “so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death” Romans 6:3;(that is we are baptized into union with Christ in death) and “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ”, Romans 7:4 and “And if Christ be in you, the body” (your body) “is dead” (reckoned dead by God) “because of sin;” (sin is a member in our body, Romans 7:23) “but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” Romans 8:10; (that is, the Spirit of Christ is the believers new life; and it is the believers new life because of the righteousness of God which is imputed to the believers  account; now righteousness entitles to life according to God’s law Leviticus 18:5) and; “For ye are dead”(so reckoned of God) “and your life is hide with Christ in God” Colossians 3:3.

Now God does indeed reckon his people dead to the curse of the law and its sentence of death; because we were executed in Christ as his members when he was executed on the cross. Thus the sentence of the law against us is fulfilled in the body of Christ, and the law of God is satisfied toward us in Jesus Christ. In his sufferings and death, the Lord Jesus Christ endured our curse, and in so doing put away our sin, he expiated out sin, legally it is no more, in the sight of God according to his justice we have no sin, past, present, or future. When Christ died he died for all our sins at once, there are none remaining. All my sins were future when Christ died. Now because I am crucified in Jesus Christ under the sentence of God’s law and justice; God will not impute sin to my account ever again, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” Romans 4:8. And again; “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation” II Corinthians 5:19 God will not impute to me that sin which he has already imputed to my surety and that sin which my surety  has already put away. Now the law of God is satisfied toward me as concerns its penal arrangements by the body of Jesus Christ, but the law of God must be obeyed and when this obedience is performed the performance thereof entitles to eternal life. But how shall a man perform that which is beyond his nature, he cannot. Therefore we must look outside of ourselves for this obedience.

Christ Jesus is our all, in all, as he by his sufferings and death satisfied the sentence of death which was upon all his members, so he has obeyed the law in its jot and tittle for all his members in his sojourn on earth, Matthew 5:17, 18 “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Now as it was in his sufferings and death, all his members suffered in him in death, so in his obedience, all his members were in union with him in all his perfect obedience in his entire life. Jesus Christ obeyed the law, in thought, word, and deed perfectly all the days of his life, as the surety and mediator of the children’s covenant, and with all his members in him according to the eternal arrangements of that covenant. The Lord Christ earned eternal life for all his members, he merited for himself, and his for own, the reward of life. Therefore the children have rendered perfect obedience to the law and justice of God in him who is their life, Jesus Christ, Colossians 3:4. The children were in Christ in his obedience as they were in Adam in his sin. So that, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” Romans 5:19. When God imputes the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is the righteousness of God, to the account of any sinner, that righteousness imputed to his account entitles that sinner to eternal life, it is his “right to the tree of life” (Revelation 22:14). If you do not have right and title to eternal life through Jesus Christ, then certainly you shall not have it. The saints of God are sinners saved by grace, and they will remain sinners all the days of their lives, but never the less, they are saints when they believe on Jesus Christ and receive all righteousness from his bounty. Reader; if your life is not as pure as the life of Jesus Christ, if your thoughts, words, deeds, attitudes, and desires are not absolutely perfectly holy, having always been so from the inception of life to its terminus, then you are a sinner, though you may be a saved sinner, yet in person, character and conduct you are a sinner, as is the writer. Therefore the testimony of the apostle is particularly precious to the people of God, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners; of whom I am chief, I Timothy 1:15.

A.J. Ison