Since every human being is a sinner, he has no inherent qualification to stand before God. People of all ages and from all races have recognized this shortcoming, even if they have not comprehended the full depth of what the Bible says about man's fallen nature (Rom 3:23).
This consciousness of sin drives then to try all the possible means of attaining righteousness but no man has ever received assurance of reaching this end through these methods. It is this desire for righteousness, combined with man's perpetual uncertainty about whether he has attained it, which helped the Roman Catholic Church to enslave a large proportion of Christians through religious rites that kept increasing both in their demands and in exploitation of the gullible.
In modern times the more rationalistic theologians have tried to overcome this guilt of sin by claiming that a God of perfect love cannot let His creatures be punished forever for their sins. To justify this claim they have invented a number of hypothetical interpretations that maintain that all mankind will ultimately be redeemed by God. These theologians stress the love and forgiveness aspect of God's nature at the expense of His justice and righteousness.
Men fall into either of the above extreme views when they ignore the Bible -- the Book given by God to answer the same question: how to be saved from sin and its guilt. The whole of the world's history changed when Martin Luther, the reformer, gave us the answer from the Bible: Justification By Faith.
We can define justification as an act of God when He forgives (remits) our sins, and accepts us as righteous in His sight. We obtain this status at the moment of our salvation when Christ's righteousness is imputed to us on grace basis, by faith alone (Rom 3:24,28, 5:1, 10:10). This justification by faith is primarily concerned with our legal status before God, because we who were sinners, and offenders by nature in the past need now need our status to be changed so that we can stand before God.
Forgiveness of sin does not automatically change us to a virtuous person. Such change does come with our growth, but at the moment of salvation our need is to be enabled to stand before God. For this God Himself confers something on us at the point of our salvation which gives us a standing before Him forever, irrespective of our state of sanctification. For this He imputes Christ's perfect righteousness to us and then sees and accepts us in the covering of that righteousness granted to us positionally.
Here God is not declaring the ungodly to be godly, but instead declaring that He is accounting man as holy on the basis of Christ's sacrificial work on his behalf. This way God is able to bring man back into proper relationship with him, irrespective of man's present spiritual state. The guilt of the unworthy man is no longer reckoned against him.
The Greek term used for justification is taken from the vocabulary of the law courts. It indicates a declaration in the sense that since Christ's righteousness has been imputed to the forgiven man, the man stands as legally a righteous person. It does not produce any immediate subjective change in the person, but because of this act the person is granted a new status, which is Christ's but which he can now count as his own due to the imputation. Understanding the doctrine of Justification by faith gives us an unparalleled assurance of our acceptance before God, motivating us to act in the spirit of true spiritual liberty.
The doctrine of justification was often not understood in all clarify by the early church fathers, whose writings confuse between forgiveness, justification, and sanctification at many places. But since there were no heresies connected with these doctrines, this obscure picture was sufficient to meet their theological needs. But this resulted in the disadvantage that the Roman Catholics were able to distort the teachings concerning justification and sanctification by making man's meritorious works the basis for obtaining righteousness.
Though they accept that there is no inherent worth in the fallen man, which needs the merits of Christ for the infusion of the new life. Yet this new life is taught to be infused at baptism. Once this righteousness is imparted to the individual, good works done by him become meritorious and acceptable towards his justification. Thus the grace infused to the individual by a spiritual rite combined with his meritorious activities become the ground for his righteousness.
This then opens up the way for the church to dictate any number of rituals and rites to which the individual must submit himself for growing in goodness. But since there is no objective way to evaluate whether a person has accumulated sufficient good for his vindication (which concept -- of being vindicated by ones own merit -- is false any way according to Rom 3:20), the devotee lives a life of perpetual uncertainty and fear, opening him up to any level of enslavement by The Church.
The consequent abuses were exposed, and a way out of it was shown, only by the Reformation. The right understanding of this doctrine immediately tells us that our salvation and justification depends solely upon Christ's works and merits, not on ours. Understanding this doctrine immediately gives us the assurance of a right standing before God, freeing us (from the enslavement of works for salvation) to the liberty of spiritual works as an expression of our post-salvation commitment and growth.
The legalistic system of the Roman Church completely suppressed the spontaneity of our love expressed to God through our works, resulting in a complete degeneration of works of righteousness out of one's own free will. Also, for the more ascetically oriented ones it was something like a bargain with God, whereby they deposited a staggering amount of good works before God. Such attitude was helpful for one's pride, but was never able to give one the assurance of salvation.
However, an over-emphasis on justification by faith by ignoring sanctification, forgiveness, and daily spiritual cleansing can lead one to a state of absolute spiritual contentment and self sufficiency. People with such attitude may even devalue the importance of good works and personal effort, giving others the impression of lawlessness.
A balanced understanding of related doctrines, however, will fill us with an awe leading us to strive for daily sanctification expressed before other by the fruits of the spirit and maturity. We will understand that after justifying us freely by Grace, God commands us to be renewed in our whole person, dying daily unto sin and living unto righteousness. We become so much committed to the law of the Spirit that the Christian no longer makes an excuse or allowance of the habitual practice of sin. On the contrary, if he should fall into sin he will be quick to realize his state and to be restored to fellowship with the help of his Lord (1 John 1:9, 2:1).
Here faith in itself is not the ground of our justification, because then that would make faith a meritorious activity reducing justification by grace to justification by human merit. Instead of it, faith is conceived of as a non-meritorious positive response to God which enables Him to grant, us His favours without coercing or forcing man to conform to His will.
Thus in His mercy God bring man into communion with himself as persons who do not need to establish some worthiness of their own first (which man can never do). Instead, He accepts us under cover of the imputed righteousness which acceptance enables man to over come the despair of guilt, prompting and providing him the liberty to try to live a life worthy of his new status.
Dr. Johnson C. Philip is a scientist (PhD in quantum-nuclear physics), and has worked extensively in the fields of free distance education and alternative medicines. His works in Christian Apologetics enjoy worldwide reputation.
