Faith and justification

How can a sinner stand before God?

Sooner or later the question comes: how can I be right with God? God is holy, and we are not. Scripture answers with the word justify, a word often used in court, where a judge declares the accused to be in the right. The trouble is that all of us are standing in the dock. Paul writes that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and then, in the same breath, announces an astonishing verdict.

But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, as attested by the Law and the Prophets. And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Romans 3:21-24

God does not simply overlook sin. He presented Christ as an atoning sacrifice "so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26); how the cross deals with sin is the subject of The cross and atonement. Matthew Henry puts the paradox simply: "It comes freely unto us, but Christ bought it, and paid the price" Matthew Henry. So Paul concludes, "we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law" (Romans 3:28).

Faith: an empty hand

Paul's great example is Abraham. Genesis says, "Abram believed the LORD, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6), and Paul draws out what that means.

Now the wages of the worker are not credited as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

Romans 4:4-5

The word for faith is pistis (πίστις). It means more than agreeing that something is true: it is trust, resting your weight on someone who is faithful. Faith is not a payment we offer God but the empty hand that receives his gift. That is why Paul insists that "by works of the law no one will be justified" (Galatians 2:16), and why the result is peace: "since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).

Jesus painted the same picture. A Pharisee listed his virtues; a tax collector stood at a distance, beat his breast and prayed, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" (Luke 18:13). It was the tax collector, Jesus said, who "went home justified" (Luke 18:14). Augustine hears a courtroom in the story: "Conscience weighed him down, hope raised him up … Hear now the sentence of the Judge" Augustine.

What, then, of James, who writes that "a man is justified by his deeds and not by faith alone" (James 2:24)? Many readers in every tradition hold that James and Paul face different errors. Paul opposes the idea that our works earn God's acceptance; James opposes a faith that is only words, which "if it does not result in action, is dead" (James 2:17). Paul too speaks of "faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6), and right after saying we are saved by grace through faith he adds that we are "created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Ephesians 2:10). As Matthew Henry puts it, "Faith is the root, good works are the fruits; and we must see to it that we have both" Matthew Henry.

How the churches explain it

Every church confesses that justification is God's grace and that no one reaches God by their own strength. But what exactly the word refers to became the question that divided the Western church in the sixteenth century.

Protestant churches, Lutheran and Reformed among them, understand justification as God's declaration. For Christ's sake God pronounces the sinner righteous, counting Christ's righteousness as ours, and we receive this by faith alone. The Augsburg Confession (1530) teaches that people cannot be justified by their own strength, merits or works, but are "freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith" Augsburg Confession, art. 4. The Heidelberg Catechism asks how I am righteous before God and answers, "Only by true faith in Jesus Christ": though my conscience accuses me, God, without any merit of mine, credits to me Christ's perfect righteousness, as if I had never sinned Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 60. Matthew Henry pictures this righteousness as "not only offered to them, but put upon them as a crown, as a robe" Matthew Henry. Good works follow as fruit, not as ground; justification and sanctification are distinguished but never separated.

The Catholic Church understands justification as God really making the sinner righteous. The Council of Trent (1547) taught that it is not only the forgiveness of sins but also the sanctification and renewal of the inner person by grace, given in baptism; that nothing which comes before it, neither faith nor works, earns that grace; that faith is the beginning of salvation; and that the justified grow in righteousness through faith working by love, as Galatians 5:6 says Council of Trent, Decree on Justification. Catholics point to the "washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5), and read James 2:24 as speaking of growth in righteousness.

The Orthodox churches were not party to this sixteenth-century Western argument. They describe salvation above all as union with God, theosis or deification: not that we become God by nature, but that by grace we "become partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). Athanasius taught that the Word became human so that we might share in the life of God Athanasius, On the Incarnation. In that union forgiveness and transformation are one gift, and the courtroom question is less central.

In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. Together they confessed: "By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God" Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. They also stated that the sixteenth-century condemnations do not apply to each other's teaching as set out in the declaration. The World Methodist Council (2006) and the World Communion of Reformed Churches (2017) later associated themselves with it. Differences remain, and some Protestant churches and theologians, such as the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, did not accept it.

Peace with God

Before it is a technical term, justification is a comfort. "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). Where we stand with God does not depend on how well we did today but on what Christ has done for us. When conscience accuses, we can pray the tax collector's prayer and be heard, and those who have been received freely begin to live gratefully. The next lesson follows that new life. To read further, see What is justification?, What is faith? and How do Catholics and Protestants differ?

Practice