Doctrine
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Romans 5:1
The oldest and greatest question a man can ask was asked long ago by Job: "How should man be just with God?" How can a guilty sinner ever stand right before a holy God and not be condemned? Every false religion tries to answer it by climbing — by works, by ritual, by doing enough good to outweigh the bad. The Bible gives an answer no man could have invented: a sinner is declared perfectly righteous before God, not by his own doing at all, but by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the great doctrine of justification, and to understand it is to find rest for the soul.
To justify is a courtroom word. It means to declare righteous — to pronounce a verdict of "not guilty," and more, "perfectly righteous," in the sight of the law. It is the very opposite of condemnation. When God justifies a believing sinner, He does not merely overlook his sin; He declares him righteous, and no charge can ever stand against him again.
"Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?" (Romans 8:33-34)
Mark this well: justification is not a gradual process of being slowly made better by our efforts. It is an instant declaration by God the Judge, complete the moment a sinner believes. The weakest, newest believer is as fully justified as the oldest saint, for both stand not in their own righteousness but in a righteousness given to them.
First, God shuts every other door. He tells us plainly that no human being will ever be declared righteous by keeping the law or by his own good deeds. The law was never given to save us, but to show us our sin.
"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Romans 3:20)
Our very best efforts fall infinitely short of God's holiness. Even our righteousness — the good we are proud of — is defiled in His sight.
"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6)
If our righteousnesses are filthy rags, what shall we say of our sins? No man will ever build a robe fit for heaven out of such cloth. The door of works is forever shut. But God has opened another.
Since we cannot earn it, God gives justification freely, as a gift of His grace, purchased not by us but by the redemption that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:24)
Note the word "freely." It costs the sinner nothing, because it cost the Saviour everything. What we could never earn, He purchased with His own blood and now offers as a free gift.
How, then, does this free gift become ours? By faith — by trusting the Lord Jesus Christ — and not by our works at all. The apostle Paul could not have stated it more plainly.
"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." (Romans 3:28)
Justified by faith, without the deeds of the law. Not by faith plus works; not by faith plus ceremonies; not by faith plus church membership — but by faith, apart from the deeds of the law. And the blessed result is peace with God.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:1)
The apostle says it again to the Galatians, who were being tempted to add works to faith, and he shuts the door twice over:
"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ... for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." (Galatians 2:16)
Lest anyone think this is a new idea, God points us back to Abraham, the father of the faithful. How was Abraham justified? Not by his works, but by believing God — and his faith was counted to him as righteousness.
"For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." (Romans 4:3)
And the Bible draws out the lesson with startling clearness: God justifies the man who stops working for his salvation and simply believes on the One who justifies the ungodly.
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." (Romans 4:5)
To him that worketh not, but believeth. This is the gospel in a sentence. Salvation is not for the one who works, but for the one who trusts the God who justifies the ungodly.
But how can a holy God declare a sinner righteous and remain just? Here is the wonder at the heart of justification. God imputes — that is, He credits, He puts to our account — the very righteousness of Christ. At the cross a great exchange took place: our sin was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and His perfect righteousness is laid upon all who believe.
"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." (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The believer stands before God not in a righteousness of his own making, but clothed in the spotless righteousness of Christ Himself.
"And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." (Philippians 3:9)
It is as though a hopeless debtor, sunk in debt he could never repay, found not only his whole debt cancelled, but a boundless fortune credited to his account in its place. God credits righteousness to the sinner apart from works, and He covers his sins so that they are remembered against him no more.
"...unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." (Romans 4:6-8)
Here we must be careful, for a great error has confused millions. To be justified is not the same as to be made holy in our daily walk. Justification is God's work for us — a once-for-all declaration in the courtroom of heaven, complete and perfect the moment we believe, never improved and never repeated. Sanctification is God's work in us — the lifelong process by which the Holy Ghost makes us more like the Lord Jesus Christ. The one is a finished verdict; the other is a growing likeness. To mix them, as though we were justified little by little through our own works and religious ceremonies, is to overthrow the gospel and to rob the soul of all assurance. The Bible keeps them distinct, yet joins them in the same saved sinner.
"...but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:11)
So the believer may rest in a justification already perfect and complete, while he grows daily in a holiness that is not yet complete. His standing before God is settled; his walk is still being shaped. And both are the gift of grace.
Someone will raise the honest objection. Does not the Bible also say, "by works a man is justified, and not by faith only"? It does — and rightly understood, it agrees perfectly. The apostle Paul speaks of how a sinner is justified before God, at the root; James speaks of how a professed faith is justified — that is, proved genuine — before men, by its fruit.
"Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." (James 2:24)
Consider Abraham himself. He was declared righteous before God by faith alone in Genesis 15, long years before he offered up Isaac in Genesis 22. When at last he offered his son, that work did not earn his justification — it displayed a faith that had been real all along. So it is with us. We are justified before God by faith alone; but the faith that justifies is never alone — it is a living faith that works, that obeys, that bears fruit. A faith that never changes the life was never saving faith to begin with. Faith alone saves, but saving faith is never alone.
See what belongs to the one whom God has justified. He has peace with God, the war ended forever. He stands under no condemnation, now or ever.
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)
He is justified from all things — even from those things the law could never deal with.
"And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." (Acts 13:39)
And, being justified by the blood of Christ, he is saved from the wrath to come.
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:9)
Then cease, dear soul, from the weary and hopeless labour of trying to make yourself righteous enough for God. You never can. Lay down your filthy rags, and receive the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ as a free gift, by faith. Trust Him — not your works, not your religion, not your resolutions — Him alone, and in that moment God the Judge will declare you righteous, forgive all your sins, and clothe you in the righteousness of His Son, forever.
"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."Romans 4:5