32: Justification by Faith

The doctrine with which we are concerned is both the divine heart of the Gospel and the Gospel for the human heart. To seek an answer to the question, How can a man be just before God? is to be launched out into the profundities of our faith and to be occupied with the deep things of the Spirit. Virtually every great truth of the Gospel is grounded upon and linked up with this. Justification by faith—the answer of God to the needs of man—is the one unchanging message and method by which God receives sinful men.

But men readily forget, as William Temple has said, that “The only thing of my very own which I can contribute to my redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed” (Nature, Man and God, p. 401).

Justification is that judicial act of God’s free mercy whereby he pronounces guiltless those sinners condemned under the law, and constitutes them as actually righteous, once and for all, in the imputed righteousness of Christ—on the grounds of his atoning work, by grace, through faith alone apart from works—and assures them of a full pardon, acceptance in his sight, adoption as sons, and heirs of eternal life, and the present gift of the Holy Spirit; and such as are brought into this new relation and standing are by the power of this same Spirit, enabled to perform good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk therein; yet such works performed, as well as the faith out of which they spring, make no contribution to the soul’s justification, but they are to be regarded as declarative evidences of a man’s acceptance in the sight of God.

A number of very important points present themselves in this comprehensive definition.

The Nature of Justification. The Hebrew term tsadek and its Greek equivalent dikaioō must be understood, in the context of our discussion, in a legal as distinguished from a moral sense. It is of course true that in every instance the forensic connotation cannot be insisted upon; there are passages in which it could with as much assurance be read “to make righteous” as “to declare righteous.” It is on the strength of this that Roman Catholic and some “Protestant” writers seek to establish their view that man is justified by his own righteousness as infused and inherent rather than by a divine righteousness vicarious and imputed.

To remain good Protestants and “Paulinists,” however, it is not necessary to prove that the term in every instance means “to declare righteous” and nothing else. The fact is that “all parties must be held to admit that, when a sinner is justified, he is, in some sense, both made and accounted righteous; and the real difference between them becomes apparent only when they proceed to explain in what way he is made righteous, and adjudged so to be” (J. Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification, p. 228).

Yet it is important to observe that in those passages of Scripture which deal specifically with the question of man’s acceptance before God the forensic sense of the term is clearly in mind, and for a correct exegesis must be so understood. When, for example, an antithetical expression, such as the word “condemnation,” is used, the forensic meaning is certainly present (see, e.g., Deut. 25:1; Prov. 17:15; Isa. 5:23; Matt. 12:37; and especially in reference to God, Rom. 5:16; 8:33, 34). A forensic idea is essential in those passages where correlative expressions appear (see, e.g., Gen. 18:25; Ps. 32:1; 143:2, Rom. 2:2, 15; 8:33; 14:10; Col. 2:14; 1 John 2:1). There are also passages in which a synonym for justification is used which make it evident that the justified man is brought into a changed judicial relation to God and that the word does not relate to a change in his moral and spiritual character (see, e.g., Rom. 4:3, 6–8; 2 Cor. 5:19, 20).

The doctrine of justification has often been stated in such a way as to leave the impression that it is a “legal fiction.” This idea of a fictio juris arises when it is taught that God merely declares a man righteous when he is not. The truth is that God sees the believing man as constituted righteous in Christ, and accepting him “in the Beloved” he pronounces him to be what he is—in Christ. Here is the paradox of the Gospel—a man is a sinner yet perfect. Yet it is only a “righteous” man who can be declared righteous. The vital question then is: Whose is the righteousness on account of which God gives his verdict, “Not Guilty” and “Acceptable”?

The Grounds of Justification. Two issues may be distinguished here, referred to as the ultimate and immediate grounds of God’s act of justifying the sinner. The ultimate ground lies in the will and the mercy of God (cf. John 1:13; James 1:18; Titus 3:5–7; Rom. 9, especially v. 16, “So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on the mercy of God” [Goodspeed]). Upon these great facts our justification is ultimately based. Here might be considered, in the light of the Scriptures, the disclosures of the eternal covenant between the Persons in the Triune Godhead by whom and through whom the plan and purpose of salvation for sinful men were forever made sure (cf. Eph. 1:3 f.; 3:2; etc.). In that eternal covenant of grace salvation was rendered certain.

More particularly, however, it need only be stated here that our justification is based solely and squarely upon the objective mediatorial work of Christ for us. It is with our Lord’s deed on the Cross that it is connected. This means that our justification is something external to ourselves. It is not something done either by us or in us. It is what was done—once and for all—for us. We are justified, it is declared, “by the blood of Christ” (Rom. 5:9), by his “righteousness” (5:18), by his “obedience” (5:19), “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 6:11).

The more immediate grounds, however, of the sinner’s justification is the imputed righteousness of Christ. Some have erroneously made the sinner’s justification to be a consequence of a grace infused and a righteousness inherent. It is the fundamental error of the Roman church to substitute the inherent righteousness of the regenerate (in baptism, of course) for the imputed Righteousness of the Redeemer. The result is that the forensic nature of justification is lost and it becomes equated with sanctification.

But there are those, not of Rome, who evade the full implications of the doctrine of justification by making room for the righteousness of man.

Against every attempt to give man a part in his justification, the Epistle to the Romans utters an emphatic denial. It is the righteousness of Christ which is imputed to the believer: the whole righteousness of the whole Christ. Christ is not divided nor can his righteousness be finally distributed. Romans 5:17 speaks of the “gift of righteousness”—the righteousness of “the obedience of one” (5:19). “It is, therefore, the righteousness of Christ, His perfect obedience in doing and suffering the will of God, which is imputed to the believer, and on the ground of which the believer, although in himself ungodly, is pronounced righteous, and therefore free from the curse of the law, and entitled to eternal life” (C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III, p. 151).

This doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness cannot be rejected as being either impossible or artificial. With regard to the first, the passage 2 Corinthians 5:21 is of decisive significance. Most surely Christ was not made sin in any moral sense. Nor in our justification are we made righteous in a moral sense. He was made sin by bearing our sins, so we are made righteous by bearing his righteousness. Our sins are imputed to him and thus become the judicial grounds of his humiliation and suffering, and his righteousness is imputed to us and thus becomes the judicial ground of our justification.

On the other hand, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness can only give the appearance of artificiality if divorced from the complementary doctrine of union with Christ. “Justification is not an arbitrary transfer to us of legal fictions in the divine government” (cf. A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 479).

The Channel of Justification. Roman Catholicism virtually makes the Church’s sacraments, working ex opero operato, produce and maintain the status by which a man is being made acceptable with God. But the Scriptures declare justification to be “by faith” (see, e.g., Rom. 3:22, 27 f.; 4:16; 5:1; etc.). This faith is “fiduciary.” It is a living and personal trust in a perfect redemption and a present Redeemer.

“Faith is not a human notion or a dream as some take it to be. Faith is a divine work in us, which changes us and causes us to be born anew from God” (John 1:13; M. Luther, Preface to Epistle to the Romans). James Arminius boldly says that the “author of faith is the Holy Spirit” (The Works of James Arminius, trans. by J. Nichols and W. Bagnall, 1853, Vol. II, p. 110). It is “a gracious and gratuitous gift of God” (p. 500).

In this connection two facts must be stressed. First, faith is only the channel of our justification. It is, as Arminius says, the “instrumental” not the “formal” cause. Some have taken the position that our pardon is based sure enough on Christ’s atoning work, but justification rests upon faith which God accepts in place of that perfect obedience due from us to the absolute demands of the law (cf. Rom. 4:3; cf. Gen. 15:6). It would be fatal to the full truth of the Gospel thus to turn faith itself into a “work.” Abraham’s faith was by no means a substitute for obedience (cf. Heb. 11:8). It was, in fact, a faith to (eis) righteousness, not instead of (anti) righteousness. The position is not made any more acceptable by talking of “evangelical obedience.” Faith has no place for any kind of help.

To make faith, then, the only channel of justification means quite literally that all works are excluded (cf. Rom. 3:28; Rom. 4; Gal. 2:16; Gal. 3; Eph. 2:8; etc.). It will stand without emphasizing that the works done by the ungenerate man have no place in his justification. But it should be underlined that if our salvation is to remain a matter of grace alone, by faith alone, this prohibition extends no less to what are called post-regeneration works. The discussion by James about the necessity of works turns not upon their meritorious value, but their evidential value. James is condemning a faith merely intellectual, while Paul is rejecting works as having saving merit. James says an inactive faith cannot justify; Paul says meritorious works do not justify. Paul requires a saving faith, therefore apart from works, and James a living faith, therefore a faith which works. And neither contradicts the other.

From the beginning of its rediscovery at the Reformation the biblical principle of sola fides has been compromised. Some have maintained that repentance and love and the new obedience are all to be included in the faith by which a man is justified. Here again effort is made to share the work between the benefits of Christ and the acts of men, and in this way to give some of the glory to man. Such an idea makes grace no longer grace.

The faith by which a sinner is justified is not, then, itself a work of obedience. “That faith and works concur together in justification, is a thing impossible” (J. Arminius, op. cit., p. 119). But neither is faith an equivalent for obedience; it is rather the germ out of which obedience springs. Faith is the medium or the instrument by which Christ is received and by which we are united to him. In Scripture we are never said to be justified dia pistin—on account of faith, but only dia pisteōs—through faith, or ek pisteōs—by faith.

Today some tend to associate ecumenical love, moral rearmament, and even prayer therapy, with faith as the means of justification. Indeed in some statements one or other of these seems to be made a substitute for that faith by which the sinner is justified in the sight of God.

The Results of Justification. It certainly includes pardon. Justification relates to the sinner’s established and unchanging position coram Deo; once established it remains. But pardon may be renewed. The justified man is certainly accepted “in the Beloved”; not only is he a “child of God” by birth, but he is also a son by adoption. He is huiothesia, brought into the enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the family (cf. Gal. 5:5; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:5). “Adoption is a term involving the dignity of the relationship of the believers as ‘sons’: it is not a putting into the family by spiritual birth, but a putting into the position of sons.” Such believers possess eternal life as a present possession (cf. John 3:15–18; 1 John 5:10–12; etc.). Such, too, have the Holy Spirit, not only as an earnest of our purchased possession (Eph. 1:14), but as the one by whom our sanctification is effected and assured (1 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 3:16).

The Evidences of Justification. Good works have a declarative value with regard to a man’s justification. Since a man has been taken into union with Christ, righteous though still a sinner, he must work out his own salvation as Gods works in him (Phil. 2:12, 13). Luther puts the matter in a nutshell: “Oh, it is a living, creative, active, mighty thing, this faith! So it is impossible for it to fail to produce good works steadily. It does not ask whether there is good to do, but before the question is raised, it has already done it, and goes on doing it. Whoever does not do such works is a faithless man” (op. cit.).

Bibliography: J. Arminius, Works, Vol. II; A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology; J. Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification; A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology; L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology; J. S. Stewart, A Man in Christ.

Vice-Principal

London Bible College

London, England

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.