Q. 33. What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, where he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” (Rom. 5:1-2)
“It was not the justification of sin, but the justification of the sinner that drove Luther from the cloister back into the world. The grace he had received was costly grace. It was grace, for it was like water on parched ground, comfort in tribulation, freedom from the bondage of a self-chosen way and forgiveness of all his sins. And it was costly, for, so far from dispensing him from good works, it meant that he must take the call to the discipleship more seriously than ever before. It was grace because it cost so much, and it cost so much because it was grace. That was the secret of the gospel of the Reformation — the justification of the sinner.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship
The life of discipleship involves the application of a threefold understanding of our spiritual formation through justification, adoption and sanctification. These three are the focus of the next four questions of the Shorter Catechism. They all belong together, if we embrace one to the exclusion of the other two, we cut ourselves off from the full understanding of our faith and impend our spiritual formation.
Roy Gustafson tells the story of a man in England who put his Rolls-Royce on a boat and went across to the Continent to go on a holiday. While he was driving around Europe, something happened to the motor of his car. He cabled the Rolls-Royce people back in England and asked, “I’m having trouble with my car; what do you suggest I do?”
Well, the Rolls-Royce people flew a mechanic over! The mechanic repaired the car and flew back to England and left the man to continue his holiday.
The poor bloke wondered: “How much is this going to cost me?” So when he got back to England, he wrote the people a letter and asked how much he owed them. He received a letter from the office that read: “Dear Sir: There is no record anywhere in our files that anything ever went wrong with a Rolls-Royce.” That’s justification.
Reformed theology insists that when justification and sanctification are not kept properly distinct, God’s once-for-all gifts of faith (i.e., salvation) and our continual struggle for holiness become confused. To begin with, the classical Protestant affirmation of the nature of justification is necessary to affirm, namely that in Jesus Christ God has once and for all forgiven us. This is our justification through the faith that is God’s gift. However, we need to make a second point, to affirm that in Jesus Christ we must continually strive to live the holy life that we undertake with the advocacy and power of the Holy Spirit. The emphasis in justification is on what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. The emphasis in sanctification is on what we must do for God with the aid of God’s Holy Spirit, although here too we emphasize that this striving also is in and through Jesus Christ. - Andrew Purves & Charles Partee, Encountering God: Christian Faith in Turbulent Times, p. 88-89.
Through God’s mercy, God chooses to save rather than to condemn all sinners. God sends Jesus Christ as the mediator – truly God and truly human – who by his obedience carries out the work of salvation in his death and resurrection so that humans may become a “new creation.” The old, corrupt, sinful nature is made new as those who accept Christ’s work gain a new status in God’s sight as made “righteous.”
For early church theologian Augustine, salvation as justification meant that persons become righteous as the Holy Spirit confers the spirit of love in their lives. Through faith, they receive a new will that seeks to do God’s will in all things. Their new will is freed – by God’s power to obey God. This new freedom through justification allows the disciple of Christ to work toward accepting their lives as children of God and grow in holiness becoming the people that God always intended for them from the time of creation. Justification replaces the corrupt, sinful will that is ours through original sin and is thus a dimension of “human nature.” As the Spirit works within them, as a disciple of Christ, they continue to grow in righteousness throughout their lives.
Today’s Lectionary Readings
Morning Psalm: 5
Evening Psalm: 35
Jeremiah 13:1-11
Romans 6:12-23
John 8:47-59
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