“Justification” in legal language means to “acquit” or “to state officially in court that somebody is not guilty of a crime.” In the New Testament, it refers to God’s gracious act (Romans 8:33), grounded in the death and resurrection of Christ (Romans 4:25), by which He accepts into a right relationship with Him the sinner who in faith entrusts himself to Christ. The true Scriptural justification “by faith” has no reference at all to the faith of sinner, but to the “faith of the Son of God” by whose perfect faith the sinner is justified. Justification means God’s reckoning a man to be righteous who has no righteousness of his own.
The individual who believes in Christ, repents of all wrongs and is baptized for the remission of sins according to the Scriptures (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38) is justified, accounted righteous, while still a sinner, by the blood of Christ. God, at that point, declares the believing obedient person to be righteous, while he is ungodly. If God changed him first, he would not be ungodly. The sinner’s faith, repentance and baptism are not “meritorious” works. They are simply giving God the credit of revealing the truth of His grace in the Gospel of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). It is Christ’s shed blood, and that alone, which is the procuring cause of God’s declaring an ungodly individual to be righteous or justified. While God’s grace is the reason for it, man’s faith and obedience to His commands is simply the instrumental condition to receive His grace. Righteousness is not something that may be achieved by man in any manner, but it is received by faith.
The ability to merit or to earn salvation is simply not possible for mortals. No man is ever saved in his own personal identity as possessing any true righteousness of his own (Isaiah 64:6). It is the perfect faith of Jesus Christ that constitutes “the righteousness of God,” and it is “the faith of Christ” that saves and justifies—not the sinner’s faith. This is in perfect harmony with an extensive body of teaching found in the New Testament as cited in the following Scriptures.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26 KJV)
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. (Galatians 2:16)
But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. (Galatians 3:22)
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. (Philippians 3:9)
Unfortunately, all of the above cited Scriptures from the Authorized Version (KJV) were changed later in the English Revised version to read in each instance, “faith in Christ” to bolster the theory of justification by “faith only.” The very notion that God could impute justification to a sinful man merely upon the basis of believing in Christ is a delusion. Justification in any true sense requires that the justified be accounted as righteous and of undeserving of any penalty whatever, and no man’s faith is sufficient ground for such an imputation.
On the other hand, the faith of Jesus Christ, as revealed in the Bible, is indeed a legitimate ground of man’s justification, because Christ’s faith was perfect. Speaking of Christ, Hebrews 5:8-9 says, “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” The faith of Christ was the obedient, perfect faith, lacking nothing whatever, and therefore, the obedient faith of the Son of God, sinless and holy, is the only ground of justification. People are saved “in Christ” having been incorporated into Him by faith. To be in Christ is that device contrived by God Himself by which a man might truly and legitimately be justified by the faith of Jesus Christ. The belief that God’s righteousness is some imputation accomplished by the sinner’s faith, therefore, is totally unfounded.
