The First Process of Salvation

JUSTIFICATION

Justification is the divine act of acquittal, of declaring a repentant sinner released from the guilt of sin and restored to divine favor. In the NT the term occurs only in Rom. 4:25 and 5:16, 18, where justification is said to have been made possible by Christ’s vicarious death on the cross and His resurrection. It is the atonement that makes justification possible. Justification involves grace on the part of God and faith on the part of humanity. The verb dikaioµ, “to justify,” “to acquit,” “to reckon,” occurs some 40 times in the NT, the majority of these being in the Epistles of Paul. This fact implies that the doctrine of justification is basically a Pauline theme. It is the foundation upon which depend our relationship to God in this life and our hope for eternal life.

In the NT “to justify” means to pronounce or to declare a person to be right, or just, as, for example, in Luke 7:29, the publicans “justified God”; and in Rom. 3:4, where Paul says, “That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings.” The term also means “to acquit” those of charges brought against them, as, for example, in Acts 13:39, “justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.” In the case of God justifying sinners, He does so by virtue of His favorable disposition toward them and His gracious purpose with respect to them.

Justification does not impart to the recipients, in their own right, the moral quality of being right, nor does it vest them with that quality. It simply vindicates them of the claims of the moral law against them because of their unlawful acts. It grants them the legal status of being considered as if they had never committed unlawful acts. Their new status is one they enjoy only by virtue of their new relationship to Jesus Christ, and can retain only by maintaining that relationship. But justification comprehends more than pardon alone. It not only declares a sinner righteous, but entitles him or her to all the rewards and benefits that properly belong to the righteous.

The Jew of Paul’s day commonly thought of righteousness objectively, as a legalistic and meticulous observance of the requirements of the law of Moses. The apostle presents the matter subjectively, as an inward disposition of heart and mind that leads to right action in harmony with “the law” as magnified by Jesus Christ and exemplified by His life on earth. When a person accepts Jesus Christ as his or her Saviour, he or she stands accepted before God, and enters into a new status, that of righteousness. But to begin with, this righteousness is more ideal than it is actual. It does not, as yet, consist of perfect fulfillment of the divine will, but primarily the individual has been accorded the right to an acceptable standing before God.

From first to last, this right status depends upon faith, not simply an intellectual faith (which even devils have; James 2:19), nor even merely trust (which is so often a mere passive dependence upon a superior power), but an ardent, vitalizing grasp of an intimate, personal relation to a personal Saviour. Often the apostle designates the relationship with God through Christ of one who has been justified by the expression “in Christ,” meaning a personal relationship with Christ (Rom. 8:1; etc.). Thus, believers are sons of God by virtue of their faith (Gal. 3:26). They live, metaphorically, within Christ, and literally within the orbit of His will. Justification is never attained by presumed works of merit, whether those prescribed by the law of Moses or by ecclesiastical legislation or by personal choice. “A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 2:16; cf. Gal. 3:11). Justification is not an objective relation to a legal system of ethics, with the expectation of thereby meriting and obtaining divine approval and award (see Rom. 4:6–8; 5:17–19). The one who stands justified shall be eternally saved from wrath at Christ’s second coming (Rom. 5:9, 10). God credits us with the life of perfect obedience our Lord lived on earth.

Justification carries with it the gift of peace with God (Rom. 5:1); it prepares the way for sanctification and glorification. Justification is ever a means to an end, not an end in itself. Paul sometimes uses the word “reconciled” to signify an experience similar to that of being “justified” (Rom. 5:10, 11). Unless God did something to change our status, He would be obliged to treat us as enemies.

The Seventh-day Adventist view of justification was set forth by James White in a Review and Herald editorial in 1869, in which he wrote: “How shall man be just with God? Or to speak still more definitely, how shall a sinner become just in God’s sight? There is but one answer that can be returned to this. His is clearly the case of that class who are justified by faith without works. But how shall the man who is thus justified maintain his justification before God? By faith which produces good works. His justification is therefore, maintained as James insists, by faith and works” (34:16, July 6, 1869).

To one who misunderstood the Seventh-day Adventist position Uriah Smith replied: “Who claims that we are to be justified by the deeds of the law? We certainly do not. Justification by faith is our sole dependence, and ever has been. . . . Do you believe you have liberty now to commit any of the sins forbidden by the ten commandments? You do not; neither do we. Do you expect to be justified by faith while living in the commission of those sins? You would not. Neither do we. This is the real question in this matter; and in this we are agreed” (ibid. 37:140, Apr. 18, 1871).

Of the relationship between justification and obedience D. M. Canright wrote: “The Gospel is not given to succeed the law, but to save men from their sins, the violations of the law. Hence faith in Christ and obedience to the commandments of God should always go together. . . . Be it understood, then, that we are not seeking to be justified by the law, but by faith, as was Abraham, Rom. 4:1–4; and yet we keep God’s law as did Abraham the father of the faithful” (ibid. 43:106, Mar. 17, 1874).

Ellen White has described justification in these words: “If you give yourself to Him [Christ], and accept Him as your Saviour, then, sinful as your life may have been, for His sake you are accounted righteous, Christ’s character stands in place of your character, and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned” (SC 62).

“The righteousness by which we are justified is imputed; the righteousness by which we are sanctified is imparted. The first is our title to heaven, the second is our fitness for heaven” (MYP 35).

“When the sinner believes that Christ is his personal Saviour, then, according to His unfailing promises, God pardons his sin, and justifies him freely. The repentant soul realizes that his justification comes because Christ, as his substitute and surety, has died for him, is his atonement and righteousness” (1SM 367).

Seventh-day Adventists believe in justification by faith alone, but also that those who have been justified by faith will aspire to make the perfection of Christ as reflected in the moral law their own pattern of life and conduct-not as a means to justification but as a result of it, out of dedicated appreciation for His infinite gift of love (John 15:10). See also Faith and Works; Law; Lawand Grace; New Birth; Righteousness by Faith; Sanctification.