Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 5:1
A common and usual answer to “What is Justification” is Just as if I had never sinned.
This may sound fine and give the individual a sense of satisfaction. However the meaning of the word has a much fuller significance. The New Testament teaches about what JUSTIFICATION is and about the fruits that follow. What can we find in the New Testament about this subject?
First of all, consider this: If Justification did no more than make one appear as if he never sinned, he would be no better off than Adam in the Garden, sinless but untested.
Secondly, it would mean that the one thus justified would still be subject to sinning as was Adam when he sinned against the known will of God. It means therefore, that after each sin, the same justification would have to be given. This would make the grace of God of none effect or ridiculous, having to be repeated constantly.
We need to define the difference between PARDON and JUSTIFICATION?
1. Pardon: This is the judicial act by which the guilty one is freed from the penalty of his crime. The pardon does not restore him to his former standing in society.
2. Justification: Justification not only clears the guilty one of the penalty of his crime or sin, but restores him to the standing which he forfeited by his crime or sin.
3. Shorter Catechism: This Catechism states “Justification is an act of God’s free grace wherein He pardoneth all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed (put to our account) to us and received by faith.” Justification is wholly an act of God’s grace toward sinful men who have received the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior.
4. Paul shows us just how and why God can bestow His righteousness upon human beings who have sinned and been alienated from Him. It is given in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
Note this:
a. “God made Him (Christ) to be sin for us” the sin sacrifice in full payment.
b. He, Christ – the Son of God who knew no sin – He was guilty of NONE!
c. We are “made the righteousness of God in Him (Christ).”
5. How then, may one be justified by God, since there are none righteous?
a. The negative Not by works of the law, nor by keeping the commandments; nor by trying to be good and doing good. God has RULED out all human effort. Galatians 2:21; Acts 13:38, 39; Isaiah 64:6; Galatians 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ …”
b. The positive. It is wholly of the grace of God, Romans 3:24,25, “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood … ” freely bestowed upon all who come to God by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior.