Additional Note D: JUSTIFICATION
Additional Note D: JUSTIFICATION
All told Paul uses the verb διχαιόω in 27 of its 39 New Testament occurrences, 15 of which are found in Romans (the next most frequent is Luke with five). Clearly Paul uses the term significantly more often than does anyone else, and equally significantly it is an important category in Romans. The word is a forensic or legal term with the meaning “acquit”.174 It is the normal word to use when the accused is declared “Not guilty”. We see its significance in an Old Testament passage: “When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting (or, justifying) the innocent and condemning the guilty” (Deut. 25:1). Here the legal meaning is plain, and this remains with the word throughout the range of its biblical use. Some argue that it means “to make righteous”, but this cannot be demonstrated.175 The impossibility of making righteous is clear when the word is used of God (3:4). It is plain also in the use of the future tense “will be justified” (2:13), for the reference is to Judgment Day and no one will be “made righteous” on that day. Moreover, that passage refers to “the doers of law” as “justified”, but by definition “doers of law” are righteous: they cannot be “made” righteous.176 The declaratory meaning is clear.177 It is to be inferred also from the fact that it stands in opposition to condemnation. “To condemn” does not mean “to make wicked”, but “to declare guilty”; similarly, “to justify” means “to declare just”.
Paul is quite definite that “no one will be justified in (God’s) sight by works of law” (3:20; cf. 4:2).178 Justification, on the contrary, is God’s good gift: people are “justified freely by his grace” (3:24). Several times Paul links justification with faith, making it quite clear that it is only by believing that anyone can appropriate this gift of God (3:26, 28, 30; 4:5; 5:1). The cross plays a necessary part in justification, for “we have now been justified by his blood” (5:9). Paul repeats the truth that justification is brought about by God (3:26; 8:30 [bis], 33), and this is, of course, implied when justification is used with reference to grace or to faith. The grace in question is always the grace of God, and the faith is faith in God; Paul stresses faith because that is the means whereby the sinner appropriates the gift of God.
In some modern discussions justification is understood in eschatological terms.179 This is to be accepted inasmuch as there is certainly a future, eschatological aspect to justification (3:20; Gal. 3:11; cf. Rom. 1:17; 5:9–10). Nowhere do the early Christians see justification as something fully realized in the here and now. Its eschatological dimension is important, and it would be a poor, maimed thing if it were bounded by this life. But this must be held in conjunction with the other reality that believers are justified now. Their justification can be spoken of with a past tense (5:1, 9; 8:30; 1 Cor. 6:11). It is characteristic of the New Testament view that justification has been established by Christ’s saving work.180
The justification of sinners is the great basic problem for all religion. God is good and man is not. How then can man, the sinner, stand before the high and holy God? Every religion must answer this question, and its value for us depends on the adequacy of the answer. What characterizes Christianity is that its answer centers on the cross. Justification does not take place because people in some way work out a means of dealing with sin. They do not and cannot. They can neither overcome it so that for the future they will live without it, nor blot it out from their past. But God can and does. Paul sees justification as brought about by Christ’s death, for it is in this manner that our sin is done away. We are thus “acquitted”, declared “not guilty”. It is not that sin is treated as though it did not matter. No one who takes the cross seriously can think that. But the cross means that sin has been dealt with and put away.181 Since this is so, it no longer remains to disqualify people and thus they can be said to be justified.
Justification by way of the cross means that God saves us in a way that accords with right. He does not save us at the price of saying “Morality does not matter. Though people have sinned they will be accepted just as they are.” Sin is an evil, and God never condones it. It must be dealt with. When we speak of justification by way of the cross, we are saying that it has been dealt with. “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” asked Abraham (Gen. 18:25). In the cross we see that he has done so.182