Justification: “The Principal Article of All Christian Doctrine”

There are few doctrines as important for Christians to understand as justification. So significant is it that Martin Luther referred to it as “the principal article of all Christian doctrine.”¹ He even went so far as to say, “If the article of justification be once lost, then is all true Christian doctrine lost.”² In other words, justification is a main thing, and it is a plain thing. It is not peripheral; it is absolutely central. It’s hard to fathom questions that are more fundamental than “How in the world can a sinful man or a woman be reconciled to a holy God?”

One of the most important biblical passages for understanding this doctrine is Romans 3:21–25, in which the apostle Paul explains God’s work of justification:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

As we consider this passage, it’s important that we understand, first, what justification is; second, on what grounds the Scriptures say God has accomplished this wonderful work; and third, by what instrument we may take hold of it.

The Meaning of Justification

The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…

Many of us live with the notion that justification is a process in which we are engaged—that if we can do enough good and quit doing bad, we may eventually reach the point where we can say, “God has accepted me.” Our notion may be that a good God will reward good people for doing their best, so that whatever’s really going on, as long as we have a good God in heaven who likes good people, and we’re good people, then we’re going to be okay.

But justification is not a gradual process in which we participate. It is an instantaneous event whereby God declares someone to be righteous. The biblical word justification and all of its derivatives come from the context of law courts, in which a judge rules that a person is right or wrong in the eyes of the law and decides their sentence in a moment. Justification is the language of acquittal, the opposite of condemnation.

A righteous judge condemns the guilty and justifies the innocent. But when we read the Gospels, we find that Jesus apparently did the very reverse of that: that the religious people who kept the law strenuously and who had so much to say about themselves and their own goodness were on the receiving end of some of Jesus’ most stinging rebukes. Meanwhile, the tax collectors and the “sinners” were on the receiving end of many amazing statements showing His compassion and His grace. The outlook of His ministry demonstrated clearly that stringent law keeping does not justify people or win God’s favor.

The reality is, God is the God “who justifies the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5). He doesn’t wait for them to gradually grow into good people; rather, He completed the work that declared them righteous while they were still sinners (Rom. 5:8). This is the meaning of grace: God’s justification is a gift, and it is undeserved and unprocurable.

The message of the Bible is that all of humankind has rebelled against God—in other words, that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Since God is the righteous Judge, the verdict He ought to deliver is “guilty” or “condemned.” Our predicament is not that we haven’t managed to be quite good enough yet but that we have defied the authority of the God who made us and fallen short of His glory. We are morally guilty, spiritually dead, and utterly unable to change that on our own.

Yet the Scriptures also tell us that those who believe are justified and not condemned (John 3:18). That’s why the apostle Paul wrote, “There is … no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Why? Because when God justifies a sinner, He forgives all of their sins—past, present, and future. The question of the doctrine of justification is thus not “How can I make myself right with God?” Instead, it is this: How can a holy God forgive sinners? How can a righteous judge acquit the guilty?

The Ground of Justification

… and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.

The answer to that question is in the cross of Jesus Christ. Justification comes to humankind “by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” It is in the cross that God executes His righteous judgment by punishing sin. Yet as He does the right thing by punishing sin, He also displays His love by bearing the punishment that our sins deserve in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.

In 2 Corinthians 5:19, Paul writes, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses”—that is, their sin and guilt—“against them.” The point Paul makes here is not simply that God is “not counting their trespasses.” It is not, as some people say, that God just looks the other way. No, Paul writes that God is “not counting their trespasses against them.” He goes on to say in verse 21 that He was counting our sins against Him—that is, against Christ: God “made him to be sin who had no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Justification is not a gradual process in which we participate. It is an instantaneous event whereby God declares someone to be righteous.

Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God—God made flesh, who dwelled on earth, lived a sinless life, died on a cross, rose again after three days, and soon after ascended to heaven. When Jesus died on that cross, He bore all of God’s punishment for sin in His body and satisfied God’s righteous wrath. This is the meaning of the word “propitiation”: Christ’s blood was a sufficient payment for the sins of humankind. So God counts our sinfulness against Jesus, and He counts Jesus’ righteousness for us who believe. Thus He became the God who, without ceasing to be a righteous Judge, “justifies the ungodly.” This is what theologians call “the great exchange”: Christ took the place of the sinner so that the sinner who repents and believes will enjoy acceptance with God.

Martin Luther wrote the following to a friend who was experiencing deep spiritual distress:

Learn Christ and him crucified. Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say: “Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin. Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine. Thou has taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.”³

A Christian may say, “There is therefore now no condemnation”—but not on the strength of their good works outweighing their bad ones, nor on the strength of gradually increasing goodness in their life. Our only hope of being accounted righteous before God is if God counts our sin against Christ and Christ’s goodness to us. On our own, we stand condemned.

Until we see the gravity of our predicament before God’s holiness, the message of salvation, of justification, will wash over us. There are crowds of evangelical Christians today whose understanding of the Gospel is only a kind of self-help therapy. They may be making all kinds of changes to their lives in an effort to be obedient to God, but they have never grappled with the fact that all of their obedience is as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6) unless and until they are in Christ, God accounting His righteousness as their own.

Justification is not a process of religious reestablishment but the radical and instantaneous intervention of Almighty God. And it happens when God says, “You are guilty, and you can do nothing about it. But today I declare you innocent on the merits of my Son”—and you believe it.

The Instrument of Justification

The righteousness of God [is] through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

How do we take hold of this free gift of God? Paul tells us that this righteousness comes “through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.” God, he says, is “the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).

Justification, in other words, doesn’t come to all people regardless of their disposition to Christ. In the book of Acts, when the Philippian jailer cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul didn’t say, “Oh, you don’t have to do anything. You’re automatically forgiven because of what Christ did.” No, he answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30–31).

It’s crucial to understand that faith is not just a different quality of works. Faith is not a merit that God rewards, as if we could believe and say the right things and so be accepted into heaven because of what we did. No, the faith that saves is a “sitting down” faith. People sit down in chairs, and they do so because they trust that the chairs will hold them up. But no amount of faith will keep someone from falling on the floor if they try to sit down on nothing. Faith is an instrument, but it is only as good as what we place our faith in.

Until we see the gravity of our predicament before God’s holiness, the message of salvation, of justification, will wash over us.

Jesus has died upon the cross to justify sinners. In each of our lives, there has to come a moment when we say, “Lord, I believe this, and I am placing myself in your hands.” In the same way that a bride and groom say to one another, “I take you,” with all that that entails, by faith we throw ourselves onto the mercy of Christ and bring our lives under His lordship. He’s not going to ask you how you feel about anything. He’s just going to ask if you are prepared to make a definite, decisive, personal, permanent commitment.

Our acceptance with God does not rely or rest on our ability to explain the details whereby we came to faith in Jesus Christ any more than we need to know the details of our birth to say with certainty that we’re alive. It is not the experience of conversion but the fact of faith in a gracious God that makes the difference. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t take it for granted. Are you justified? If you can’t yet answer that question with certainty, don’t put it off. Give yourself to the Lord. As Paul also wrote, “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). Will you seize it?

This article was adapted from the sermon “After Darkness, Light” by Alistair Begg. Subscribe to get weekly blog updates.