Freed through Faith

So what does justification mean? We'll break down the following definition:

46First, justification is the gracious act of God. At the end of verse 16, Paul alludes to the following:

The psalmist is at the end of himself, and he knows that no one is righteous before God, nor is there anything in man that can make him right before God. Nothing in us warrants, merits, initiates, or causes God to save us. Justification is all about grace, which means that faith itself is evidence of grace. Therefore, we've got to be careful not to make faith into a work of the law, so to speak. Yet I fear that's what we've done with things such as formulaic prayers which, when recited, are supposed to result in conversion. If we're not careful, "Do this work and you'll be saved" is what we're communicating to people. But faith is not a work we muster up. Faith itself is evidence of grace. Justification is a gracious act of God that we need Him to take.

Next, justification is the gracious act of God by which God declares. Justification is a declaration. The word picture is that of a judge declaring his judgment. This is important because justification is an act, not a process whereby we're more justified tomorrow than we are today. It's a once-for-all declaration. And once you're declared "justified," or "righteous," you're justified forever. That's why Romans 5:1 says, "Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

God the judge makes a declaration in justification, and that declaration involves a sinner. This is guilty man standing before holy God. This was a crucial point for Paul, particularly in the context of justification. When Paul first encountered Christ, he realized that God's judgment was due him, not simply for his wickedness, but even for his goodness. If that sounds strange, consider Paul's preconversion spiritual resume:

47Paul had spent his entire life seeking to obey the law of God, trying to be good. Yes, he was persecuting the church, but that's because he perceived the church to be opposed to the old covenant. He was zealous to keep God's commands. But when he encountered Christ, Paul realized something life-changing: he wasn't good. That is, even his so-called goodness wasn't good enough. That's why he says, "Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth" (Phil 3:8). All our self-generated "goodness" is actually filthy in the sight of God. That's what makes the next aspect of justification so amazing.

In justification, God takes a sinner, a guilty sinner, and declares him righteous. The holy judge of the universe takes a sinner who is in willful rebellion, deserving only of a guilty verdict, and says, "Not guilty." Justification is the opposite of condemnation. It includes God's once-for-all forgiveness of sins and His unchangeable declaration that we are righteous in His sight. You are at peace with God. You're innocent. You're not guilty anymore. This is the gospel! But how? How does this happen? Better yet, how can this happen? How can a sinner be declared righteous?

Justification is solely through faith in Jesus Christ. God the judge takes the righteousness of Christ and credits it to your account when you put your trust in Christ. Paul puts it this way: "He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor 5:21). We are guilty, deserving of death, but our accounts were credited to Jesus, who bore God's holy wrath on the cross. In turn, by His death on the cross, Christ has made a way for His righteousness to be credited to us. But this righteousness isn't credited to us by our own attempts to add to Christ's finished work. That misses the point. We are justified by trusting in Jesus—by faith. Not faith plus what we do, but faith alone in Christ. Consider Question 60 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which describes the Protestant understanding of justification:

The story is told about a wealthy Englishman who purchased a Rolls-Royce and took his new car to France. It had been advertised as the car of all cars—a problem-free automobile. But when the man got his car to France, it broke down. So he called the Rolls-Royce folks in England. They flew a mechanic to France to fix the man's car. Of course, the man expected to get an expensive bill from Rolls-Royce, since they had flown all the way out of the country to fix his car. But months passed by and he never heard from them. So finally he wrote to them and said, "I can pay the bill, just send it to me." Rolls-Royce sent him a note back that said, "I'm sorry, sir, but we have no record of anything ever having gone wrong with your car." To his surprise, the bill was clean.

This is what happens when someone believes the gospel. When you place your faith in Christ and receive His forgiveness and righteousness, God looks at you and says, "I have absolutely no record of anything ever having gone wrong in your life." Praise God for His grace!

Keep in mind, however, that justification is not the same as sweeping sin under the rug and pretending it never existed. God knows it exists. Sin has a penalty, but that penalty has been paid. And the record of your sins was put on the cross of God's Son. That's why we are accepted before God through faith in Christ.

Does this seem too good to be true? That's what some opponents of the Reformation thought, and it's likely what the Judaizers were thinking. If faith alone in Christ is the only basis for acceptance before God, then doesn't that undermine a life lived for God? Galatians 2 has an answer for this objection.

In verses 18-19 Paul warns against trusting in Christ and then returning to live like your acceptance before God is based on following the law. In verse 19 Paul tells us why he died to the law: "so that I might live for God." Not only are we justified by faith, but we live by faith. Paul had no room for a salvation that consists of praying a prayer, supposedly trusting in Jesus, and then living your life the same after that. Impossible. Faith isn't just for receiving salvation; it's also for enabling us to live out salvation. We live every day, every moment, by faith. This follows from verse 20: "And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live49 in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

In verse 19 Paul spoke of dying to the law, and now in verse 20 he speaks of living by faith. So are we dead or alive? To answer that question, we need to consider Christ's death on the cross. There is obviously a sense in which this only involved Christ: He alone could pay the price for all our sin; He alone could bear the full weight of the wrath of God. But in another sense, we share in what happened on the cross. We have been crucified with Christ. The Puritan William Perkins said,

Similarly, Paul says in Romans 6:3 that we've been baptized into Christ's death, meaning that we have died with Him. So what does that mean? It means we die to sin—its penalty, power, and dominion. All our sin—past, present, and future—has been paid for on the cross. Christ has taken all of it. So when a Christian sins, God doesn't say, "You're not justified anymore." No, your justification is sealed; you have died to sin. God's declaration is final.

We not only die to sin when we trust in Christ, but we die to ourselves. Paul says, "I no longer live" (Gal 2:20). This is where the easy-believism that is being sold today as the gospel is completely undercut. You don't just believe intellectually that Jesus died on the cross for your sins. No, when you place your faith in Christ, you die with Christ. Your heart of stone is crushed, your pride is shattered, and your life is surrendered. You die to your old self that was dominated by sin. In verse 16 Paul speaks of having believed "in Christ Jesus." That word "in" literally carries the idea of faith into Christ Jesus. This is more than just assent to the fact that Jesus lived and died; this is running into Christ for mercy.

And when we do, He covers our sin. He takes all our sin upon Him and His blood covers it. Paul says Christ died for us while we were still sinners, such that we have been "declared righteous by His blood" (Rom 5:8-9). So Jesus covers our sin, and He changes our lives. When Paul says he has been crucified with Christ, he's virtually saying, "It's not the same 'me' anymore. It's not the 'I' that tried to work for God and 50failed every time, nor the 'I' that thought the world revolved around him. The pride of the old 'I' directed everything to focus on self-esteem, self-confidence, self-direction, and self-exaltation. And it lived for personal pleasure and position. But my life is no longer about me," Paul says, "because Christ lives in me." This is where the key of faith comes in.

Despite how we normally think about Christianity, we are not in debt to Christ. We typically reflect on what He did in the past on the cross, which is obviously a good thing to do, but if we're not careful, we will leave it there and start to think, Jesus has done this for me, so what can I now do for Him? The reason we must be careful here is because Jesus hasn't stopped doing for you. You're not paying Him back, because He's still paying you. We are indwelt by Christ! Christ is in us. And the Christian life is not so much about you and I living for Christ as it is trusting Christ to live for us and through us and in us. This is faith. By faith we are accepted before God, and by faith we are alive to God because we are attached to Christ. Consider voices from the past and the present on this crucial truth:

This is the key to the Christian life: faith in Christ—not just the Christ who died on the cross for you, but the Christ who lives in you. We live by faith when we believe Christ every moment of every day. We believe Him to be our sustenance and our strength. We believe Him to be our love and joy and peace. We believe Him to be our satisfaction—more than money and houses and cars and stuff. We believe Christ to be our purity and our holiness and our power over sin. This is Christianity: believing Christ to be everything you need for every moment you live. You live by faith in the Son of God.

Freed through Faith

So how do you please God? How can you obey all these radical commands of Christ that we see in the Gospels and throughout the New Testament? The answer is you can't. You need Christ to do it. And He's there. So trust Him. And realize that God's pleasure in you is not based on your performance for Him; instead, God's pleasure in you is based on Christ's performance for you. And remember, even after we have been accepted by God, our good works are still the result of Christ's work in us. We must trust Him daily to produce in us that which pleases God.

But how do you know He'll give you everything you need to follow His Word? You know this because, in the words of Paul, He loves you and He gave Himself for you (v. 20). Paul gets extremely personal here, and it's as if he invites you to say, "Christ loves me." You can trust Jesus to be everything you need or want and to be your life because He is passionate about you. He loves you. It's good to remember that God's passion is for the world and for all peoples, and that Christ died for all peoples in all nations. That's biblical Christianity. But I want to remind you that Christ died on the cross for you.

Jesus is not only passionate about you, but He has paid a price for you. He gave Himself for you on the cross so that His life, with all of its present and eternal benefits, might be yours. So let's trust Him. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Reflect and Discuss