Have you ever noticed that the world of doctrine brings with it a bunch of “tion” words? We have adoption, redemption, glorification, sanctification, propitiation, imputation, salvation, etc. This week, we’ll be focusing on one of the most central -tion doctrines in orthodox Christianity, the amazing doctrine of justification. This doctrine describes how we are saved.
One might say that to be justified is to be righteous-ified…that is, declared righteous. This doctrine, in a nutshell, says that justification is a legal declaration made by God regarding a sinner. This legal declaration decrees that the sinner is righteous, and makes the sinner righteous by counting the sinner’s sin to Christ, and Jesus’ own righteousness to the sinner. This is what Martin Luther referred to as, “the great exchange.” And great indeed it is! This declaration is a one-time deal and is at God’s inititiation from start to finish and is received by faith. We don’t even have to work at it, it’s all done for us and to us! What great news!!
The doctrine of justification by faith alone is formed from much Scriptural bedrock, and I hope to turn to several of these passages. It would be a great idea to review some of these passages. As you do, think about what they reveal about us, God, the event of justification, and what outcome that has for the believer. Also, what relationship is there between good deeds and justification? Check out Gen. 15:1-6, Rom. 3:21-4:12, Gal. 2:15-3:14, and James 2:20-26 for starters.
My notes can be seen here.
P.S. The books that I recommended in class are listed below:
The Future of Justification, by John Piper (a pastoral response to N.T. Wright’s new perspective on Paul/justification)
Justification, by J.V. Fesko (very accessible description of the doctrine)
Justification, by Francis Turretin (kind of heady)
Justification Vindicated, by Robert Traill (older English, but understandable)
Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul, by Guy Prentiss Waters
Reading through these passages, I was impressed by how clearly the doctrine of justification by faith is proclaimed in them. That’s very neat. The big challenge for me is not to take the doctrine of justification for granted. Am I astounded that God would do this, that it would work that way?
Rachel and I were having dinner last night with a Russian neighbor who grew up with (what sounds like) merely ritualistic observance of Russian Orthodox practice. She told us about a friend in Russia who converted to Buddhism because “the Russian Orthodox religion is soft. If you do something wrong, you just pray and God excuses you. In Buddhism, you pay for your wrongs in how you are born in the next life.” Talking about it afterward, Rachel and I agreed that God doesn’t excuse sin, He punished it awfully in Christ. But do we deal with sin the way our neighbor’s friend described it?
May God deepen our wonder and gratititude for his declaring us righteous by grace through faith.
By: Charlie Armstrong on March 28, 2009
at 9:27 am
You said that justification ‘makes’ us righteous. I think, in order to avoid Roman misunderstanding, we should qualify that ‘make’ doesn’t literally mean ‘make’. When God gives His forensic declaration of righteousness, it is just that, a ‘declaration.’ God doesn’t actually make us ‘righteous’ in the sense of recreating us — that would be confusing justification with sanctification. Justification is God calling something into being that is not — namely an alien or foreign righteousness. A justified sinner does not have a ‘re-created’ righteousness in him, only a legal declaration.
That would be my two cents.
By: Anonymous on April 2, 2009
at 1:25 am
Michael,
You’re right; my wording was unclear. I’ve changed it from “makes” to “declared. Although this may just seem like semantics, it is an incredibly important distinction and is one of the main differences between orthodoxy in Catholic heterodoxy.
By: Matt Borg on April 2, 2009
at 12:09 pm