If a Christian does not know the reality of justification one thing is in doubt and another is a certainty: it is doubtful that he has truly taken hold of Christ and it is certain that he will finally let go of Him, for justification is the only entrance into God’s Kingdom and the only sure way of staying there. Without justification man finally sinks into the despairing cry of his own corruption.
When justification is a reality in the heart, a man can survive the inner, bludgeoning turmoil of self-doubt and moral defeat; he can survive the outer conflict of persecution and rejection; he can survive the collapse of the expected order of things, because through justification he knows the unassailable favor of God.
King David could face the chaos of his inner, emotional world and the onslaught from the outer world of his enemies because he knew he was justified: “Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. The enemy pursues me…he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead. So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed” (Ps. 143:2, 3, 4 NIV). And King David could face the collapse of the expected order of all things for the same reason: he was justified: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” (Ps. 46:1, 2 NIV).
Justification is God’s monumental act of judgment in favor of sinners. They “are justified freely by His grace” (Rom. 3:24), because, “by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified” (Rom. 3:20). Perhaps most Christians believe that when we are justified we are merely pardoned (remember the bumper sticker, “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven”?). But a faith that stands when all else falls, knows there are three things justification is not.
First, justification is not simply pardon. When Paul said, “the doers of the law shall be justified” (Rom. 2:13, that is, if they could “do” the law; he argues they can’t) it would not make sense if it meant “the doers of the law shall be pardoned.”
When President Ford pardoned President Nixon over Watergate, no one understood that to mean that Nixon was innocent and therefore justified. He was simply forgiven, that is, pardoned.
In England, when men have been found guilty of crime and imprisoned only to be found innocent later, upon the uncovering of new evidence, they receive “the Queen’s Pardon” and are released. In some instances, a few such “pardoned” men have returned the notification of Pardon to Buckingham Palace, adamantly asserting that they needed no such pardon since they were not guilty in the first place. These men rejected pardon because they did not need forgiveness for wrong-doing but vindication for being right.
Second, justification is not an act of pardon that restores to favor. A president or monarch pardoning a government official for wrongdoing and restoring him to office, does not thereby say it was all a mistake and that no wrong-doing was involved. He simply exercises mercy and gives him another chance.
Third, justification is not the process of making a person inwardly just or holy. When a man is justified (judged as just) by God, righteousness is imputed to him (Rom. 4:6), that is, righteousness is ascribed to him, reckoned to his account. The fact that righteousness is imputed means that a person is not made good when he is justified. The parallel exists in modern jurisprudence. When a man is accused of a crime but is found to be innocent in the eyes of the law and consequently acquitted, the acquittal does not change his character, whether he’s good or bad.
Justification, then, is not simply pardon. It is not pardon and restoration. And it does not make a person inwardly just, “for by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified” (Rom. 3:20).
Justification is a judicial act that expresses the act of the judge. It is a pronouncement, a declaration that the person arraigned is not condemned because he is just and right, conforming to the law. Pardon and justification, therefore, are essentially distinct. When God justifies sinners He does more than remit punishment: He declares that no ground for the infliction of punishment exists. When God justifies a sinner He does more than pardon a guilty man: He declares His verdict on an innocent man. When God justifies a sinner He does more than wipe his slate clean: He gives him a perfect record of having always been righteous.
How this can possibly be has been the subject of theological debate through the centuries. Upon this issue hangs the life of the Church and the recovery of every person struggling with human bondage, for if the Church loses sight of the light of justification it becomes the worst of tyrannies in a tyrannical world and the flock of God wanders lost in the darkness, inflicting pain on itself.
The followers of Pelagius, during the Middle Ages, believed that God’s justification meant simply His pardoning of sinners and His restoring them to divine favor. The Roman Catholics believed that God justifies sinners by making them inwardly pure so that the righteous are those only who conform inwardly to the Law. Protestants, to the contrary, assert that justification is God’s act of declaring sinners just on the grounds that justice has been satisfied, so that there is no further basis for the condemnation of the sinner.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of subjective justification has revived in recent years and spread through many Protestant denominations. In brief, it is the message that God never declares anyone just who is not so in himself, that no man can be justified who is not inwardly conformed to the perfect law of God. This view is a sentence of eternal death on all mankind, for there is none righteous, no not one; neither by works nor by faith; neither by nature nor by grace.
It is this false doctrine which kept me in religious bondage to homosexuality for fifteen years. I spent so much energy trying to gain God’s favor without ever sensing I’d lastingly secured it that a permanent state of anger towards God resided, unidentified, within me, which stimulated, for the want of relief, the oblivion of sin.
But the controversy over justification surrounded not only the meaning of the word justification, but also the phrase the works of the law. When Paul says, “For by the works of the Law, there shall no flesh be justified” (Rom. 3:20), which law is he referring to? There are four major historical views. First, the Pelagians said Paul was referring to the ceremonial law of Moses, like circumcision and sacrifices. These would not justify, they said, but the moral law of Ten Commandments would. Second is the Roman Catholic position which is that though Paul is speaking of the moral law, it cannot justify a man until he is renewed by the Spirit, after which his spiritual works harmonize with the law, by which he is then justified. The third, the Arminian view, was that the law which cannot justify is the perfect obedience expected of Adam before the Fall, which now, after the Fall, cannot be expected. So now, through the Gospel, God accepts for justification the imperfect works of faith. The fourth view is a psychologized update of the Catholic position: that the moral law creates only an external obedience in us, but that when the heart is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, a new inward state, produced by grace, meets the highest standards of the law. Thus, says this view, Paul means that no one can be justified by an obedience produced in his own effort, but obedience that is performed by grace meets the highest demands of the law, and is thus the inward righteousness that justifies.
Against all these views which place the reason for God’s justification of man upon some quality within him stands THE GOSPEL. Protestants for three centuries, having turned afresh to the Scriptures after nearly a millennium of biblical darkness, proclaim that the works of the law excluded as a basis for justification by God are not merely ceremonial works or high moral works of the unconverted, not merely the perfect obedience required by Adam before the Fall, but even works produced in us by the Spirit after conversion!
The evidence for this is categorical:
1. Romans 3:19 shows that the law of which Paul speaks is the law that binds all mankind, not just a ceremonial law binding Jews. This universal law declares all men guilty. Paul’s argument up to this point is that the whole world is in slavery to sin and nothing in men’s character can justify them before God.
2. Romans 7 shows that the law binding all men demands the highest moral obedience and applies to the deepest inner motives. It calls us to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. There can be no higher righteousness than the law calls for.
3. Paul never contrasts one law with another. He does not say, “The ceremonial law doesn’t justify but the moral law does”; or “obedience in your own strength doesn’t justify, but obedience through the Spirit does”. His contrast is works of all kinds contrasted with faith.
4. The works rejected for justification are, according to Titus 3:5, “works of righteousness” of which there is no higher kind.
5. The works rejected as a basis for justification are the works of Abraham whose faith obedience is held up as a model for all generations (Romans 4).
6. Wherever Paul states the basis of our justification it is declared to be the obedience, death, and blood of Christ.
7. Paul faces the objection to this doctrine, in Romans 6, which is that if all works are excluded from justification, then we may live in sin. There would be no purpose for this objection, nor for Paul’s addressing it, if he were not maintaining that all works are excluded from justification.
8. The experiential testimony of God’s people throughout the ages, at least in their prayers and praise, is that they renounce all inward virtue and cast themselves on the mercy of Christ.
So then, dear reader, this is the great Thing we believe, that men are declared innocent, righteous and good, while they are wicked (Rom. 4:5); they are reconciled to God, while they are enemies (Rom. 5:10), before any inner virtue is molded within them. This is made possible because Christ is the Son of God made Son of Man who has sacrificed Himself as a substitute for the sins of mankind and now represents them in a new righteousness. The universal urge for justice and justness is met in Him. God assuages His just fury over a damaged universe in His Own death.
This stunning verdict of God’s love in favor of sinners removes all self-doubt (why waste time trying to believe in your old self?) and creates a fortitude that withstands failure, rejection and persecution, and the collapse of your world. This one truth alone can overthrow homosexuality, sexual addiction and all other human bondage. Dare to believe it! Guilt is the all-pervasive, spiritual force that drives homosexuality and all human addictions. For it calls for a constant hiding from God and the denial of what is going on. That alone makes sin necessary for survival as a means of comfort in a forlorn world. But when you train your faith to know that you are judged innocent before God, that abused relationship with Him comes to an end and so does the driving force behind homosexuality.
I am indebted to the 19th century’s Dr. Charles Hodge for major portions of this article. —Colin D. Cook