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Justification (theology)
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In Christian theology, justification is God's act of declaring or making a sinner righteous before God. The concept of justification occurs in many books of the Old and New Testaments.
The extent, means, and scope of justification are areas of significant debate.
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In Christian theology, justification is God's act of declaring or making a sinner righteous before God. The concept of justification occurs in many books of the Old and New Testaments.
The extent, means, and scope of justification are areas of significant debate. Broadly speaking, Catholics and Orthodox Christians distinguish between initial justification—which occurs in baptism—and final justification, accomplished after a lifetime of striving to do God's will. Protestants believe that justification is a singular act in which God declares an unrighteous individual to be righteous because of the work of Jesus. Justification is granted to all who have faith, but even that is viewed as a gift from God (compare ).
Justification is seen by Protestants as being the theological fault line that divided Roman Catholic from Protestant during the Reformation.
Biblical data
Old Testament
The Old Testament stressed the need for righteousness and opened up the possibility of cleansing from sin. The early church saw the Mosaic Law as creating an impossibly high standard of righteousness which left the individual in need of cleansing. The prophets spoke of the need for cleansing from sin. The sacrifices required in Leviticus also spoke to the need for cleansing from sin. However, the prophets were clear that the sacrifices of themselves did not accomplish cleansing. Hence, the early church understood the sacrifices to be figurative of the sacrifice of Jesus.
Gospels
Justification by faith
Jesus used the idea of ransom, or redemption when referring to his work on earth. Christ's death and resurrection (triumph over satan and death) provides justification for believers before God. His righteousness becomes theirs, and his death becomes an offering to God in their place, to pay for all of their sins.
Thus justification is by faith alone - not through good deeds - and is a gift from God through Christ.
Romans 4:25 [Jesus Christ] was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
Romans 3:22-25 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.
Faith plus works
James 2:24 "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone."
In the context of the surrounding verses, it is apparent that the point being made is that what one believes modifies one's actions - thus true faith in God results in a desire to follow his instruction to love one another, and thus would result in good deeds. In Roman Catholic and Lutheran doctrine, as expressed in the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification"(JDDJ) under section 4.7 no.37. "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification", signed by both Lutheran World Federation and The Roman Catholic Church on 31 October, 1999, clearly stated that "consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification exists between Lutherans and Catholics." It reinstates that several theological views on justification held by Lutherans and Catholics, though not apparently similar to each other, are in fact explaining the same "basic truths of the doctrine of justification" at different angles. An example can be cited from section 4.7 no. 38-39, "when Catholics affirm the "meritorious" character of good works, they wish to say that, according to the biblical witness, a reward in heaven is promised to these works. Their intention is to emphasize the responsibility of persons for their actions, not to contest the character of those works as gifts, or far less to deny that justification always remains the unmerited gift of grace," in comparison with "the concept of a preservation of grace and a growth in grace and faith is also held by Lutherans. They do emphasize that righteousness as acceptance by God and sharing in the righteousness of Christ is always complete. At the same time, they state that there can be growth in its effects in Christian living. When they view the good works of Christians as the fruits and signs of justification and not as one's own "merits", they nevertheless also understand eternal life in accord with the New Testament as unmerited "reward" in the sense of the fulfillment of God's promise to the believer."
James 2:15-18
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
D. Kennedy explains this verse:
“...James is dealing with people who profess to be Christians, and yet they don't evidence the reality of their faith by their works [deeds]. Over, and over again... people will say they have faith and they don't have works, and James is saying that real faith always produces works as a result... The question is, 'A man may say that he has faith, but will that faith justify him?' If it is just a 'said' faith”—no, it won't!”
Righteousness
Concerning the need for righteousness, Jesus says "I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." - this is possible by accepting the salvation of Christ. His righteousness (rightness and purity before God, as Christ never committed any sins) is transferred to believers when they seek the forgiveness that Christ purchased for them on the cross. Concerning his own death and speaking at the Last Supper, he says, ". . .this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." He also speaks often of forgiveness of sins.
Paul
It was Paul who developed the term justification in the theology of the church. Justification is a major theme of the epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians in the New Testament, and is also given treatment in many other epistles. In Romans, Paul develops justification by first speaking of God's just wrath at sin (Rom. 1:18 - 3:20). Justification is then presented as the solution for God's wrath. One is said to be 'justified by faith apart from works of the Law.' Further, Paul writes of sin and justification in terms of two men, Adam and Christ. Through Adam, sin came into the world; through Jesus, righteousness came into the world, bringing justification. In this connection, Paul speaks of Adam's sin being 'imputed' or 'accounted' and speaks of justification as acting in analogy to sin. In chapter 8, Paul connects justification with predestination and glorification. He further states that those who are justified cannot be separated from the love of Christ. Several of these passages are central in the debate between Roman Catholics, and the various streams of Protestantism (there is no common understanding of Justification among Protestant denominations), who understand them in quite different ways. In Galatians, Paul emphatically rejects justification by works of the Law, a rejection sparked apparently by a controversy concerning the necessity of circumcision for salvation.
Other New Testament writers
The Epistle to the Hebrews also takes up the theme of justification, declaring that Jesus' death is superior to the Old Testament sacrifices in that it takes away sin once for all (Heb. 10). In Hebrews, faith in Jesus' sacrifice includes steadfast perseverance. James discusses justification briefly but significantly, declaring that a faith that is apart from works cannot be a justifying faith, because faith is made perfect or completed by works. Indeed, works are required for justification because "man is justified by works, and not by faith alone," though the sense of the word justified in this passage is disputed.. The writer of James emphasizes the Jewish belief that faith and deeds go together. Faith without works is counterfeit. The faith must produce good fruit as a sign lest it become the occasion for self-justification. In James faith refers to sound theology: In Paul it is trust in Jesus and communion with him (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, p. 1471). The positions are complementary, not opposed.
Early church and justification
After the apostolic era, the concept of justification was secondary to issues such as martyrdom. Justification as a concept is mentioned in the works of early church fathers and in the sermons of John Chrysostom), but it is not developed until Augustine's conflict with Pelagius.
Pelagius taught that one became righteous through the exertion of one's will to follow the example of Jesus' life. Over against this, Augustine taught that we are justified by God , as a work of His grace . Augustine took great pains in his anti-Pelagian works to refute the notion that our works could serve as the proper basis for our justification. The church affirmed most of Augustine's teachings and rejected all of those of Pelagius.
Hence, in the early church, justification was a work of God leading to righteousness, and saving us from God's wrath; but few of the controversial questions mentioned above were addressed in any detail, save that justification definitely requires the work of God in us. However, the language used in describing justification would encompass the modern terms of both "justification" and "sanctification".
Views of different traditions
Christian traditions answer questions about the nature, function and meaning of justification quite differently. These issues include: Is justification an event occurring instantaneously or is it as an ongoing process? Is justification effected by divine action alone (monergism), by divine and human action together (synergism) or by human action? Is justification permanent or can it be lost? What is the relationship of justification to sanctification, the process whereby sinners become righteous and are enabled by the Holy Spirit to live lives pleasing to God?
Roman Catholic views
After the East-West Schism in 1054, the doctrine of the atonement continued to develop in the West. The contributions of Anselm and Thomas Aquinas had a strong influence on the present-day Roman Catholic doctrine of justification. To Roman Catholics, justification is "a translation, from that state wherein man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace, and of the adoption of the sons of God, through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Savior" , including the transforming of a sinner from the state of unrighteousness to the state of holiness. This transformation is made possible by accessing the merit of Christ, made available in the atonement, through faith and the sacraments .
In Roman Catholic theology, all are born in a state of original sin, meaning that both the guilt and sin nature of Adam are inherited by all. Following Augustine, the Roman Catholic church asserts that people are unable to make themselves righteous; instead, they require "justification."
Roman Catholic theology holds that God's righteousness is infused into the sinner when he or she partakes of the sacrament of baptism, combined with faith. This is termed initial justification or "being cleansed of sin", the entrance into the Christian life. As the individual then progresses in his Christian life, he continues to receive God's grace both directly through the Holy Spirit as well as through the sacraments. This has the effect of combatting sin in the individual's life, causing him to become more righteous both in heart and in action. This is progressive justification, or "being made righteous." It is also the case, according to Robert Sungenis, that God views those who are in the process of being justified through the lens of grace, so that He sees them as beloved children despite their sin .
At the final judgment, the individual's works will then be evaluated . At that time, those who are righteous will be shown to be so. This is the "final justification."
Orthodox views
Eastern Christianity, including both Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, tends to de-emphasize justification compared to Roman Catholicism or Protestantism — so much so that justification often has no separate treatment in Eastern theological works. The Greek term for justification (dikaiosis) is not understood by most Eastern theologians to mean simply being pardoned of one's sins. This justice is understood as applying not only to justice, but also to the concepts of righteousness, virtue, and morality. In large part, this de-emphasis on justification is historical. First, the doctrine of the atonement developed differently in the East and the West. The Eastern church sees humanity as inheriting the disease of sin from Adam, but not his guilt; hence, there is no need in Eastern theology for any forensic justification. Second, the Reformation was the catalyst for extremes in precision regarding justification; however, the Eastern and Western churches had already divided long prior to that event.
The Orthodox see salvation as a process of theosis, in which the individual is united to Christ and the life of Christ is reproduced within him. Thus, in one sense, justification is an aspect of theosis.. However, it is also the case that those who are baptized into the church and experience Chrismation are considered to be cleansed of sin. Hence, the Orthodox concept of justification cannot be reconciled to Protestant concepts, while it is not considered as being in disagreement to Roman Catholic concepts. In the words of one Orthodox Bishop:
- Justification is a word used in the Scriptures to mean that in Christ we are forgiven and actually made righteous in our living. Justification is not a once-for-all, instantaneous pronouncement guaranteeing eternal salvation, regardless of how wickedly a person might live from that point on. Neither is it merely a legal declaration that an unrighteous person is righteous. Rather, justification is a living, dynamic, day-to-day reality for the one who follows Christ. The Christian actively pursues a righteous life in the grace and power of God granted to all who continue to believe in Him.
Protestant views
In Lutheranism
From 1510 to 1520, Luther lectured on the Psalms, the books of Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. As he studied these portions of the Bible, he came to view the use of terms such as penance and righteousness by the Roman Catholic Church in new ways. He became convinced that the church was corrupt in their ways and had lost sight of what he saw as several of the central truths of Christianity, the most important of which, for Luther, was the doctrine of justification — God's act of declaring a sinner righteous — by faith alone through God's grace. He began to teach that salvation or redemption is a gift of God's grace, attainable only through faith in Jesus.
"This one and firm rock, which we call the doctrine of justification," insisted Martin Luther, "is the chief article of the whole Christian doctrine, which comprehends the understanding of all godliness." He also called this doctrine the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae ("article of the standing and falling of the church"): "…if this article stands, the Church stands; if it falls, the Church falls." Lutherans follow Luther in this when they call this doctrine "the material principle" of theology in relation to the Bible, which is "the formal principle." They believe justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ's righteousness alone is the gospel, the core of the Christian faith around which all other Christian doctrines are centered and based.
Luther came to understand justification as entirely the work of God. When God's righteousness is mentioned in the gospel, it is God's action of declaring righteous the unrighteous sinner who has faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness by which the person is justified (declared righteous) is not his own (theologically, proper righteousness) but that of another, Christ, (alien righteousness). "That is why faith alone makes someone just and fulfills the law," said Luther. "Faith is that which brings the Holy Spirit through the merits of Christ". Thus faith, for Luther, is a gift from God, and ". . .a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it." This faith grasps Christ's righteousness and appropriates it for the believer. He explained his concept of "justification" in the Smalcald Articles:
Traditionally, Lutherans have taught forensic (or legal) justification, a divine verdict of acquittal pronounced on the believing sinner. God declares the sinner to be "not guilty" because Christ has taken his place, living a perfect life according to God's law and suffering for his sins. For Lutherans justification is in no way dependent upon the thoughts, words, and deeds of those justified through faith alone in Christ. The new obedience that the justified sinner renders to God through sanctification follows justification as a consequence, but is not part of justification.
Lutherans believe that individuals receive this gift of salvation through faith alone. Saving faith is the knowledge of, acceptance of , and trust in the promise of the Gospel. Even faith itself is seen as a gift of God, created in the hearts of Christians by the work of the Holy Spirit through the Word and Baptism . Faith is seen as an instrument that receives the gift of salvation, not something that causes salvation. Thus, Lutherans reject the "decision theology" which is common among modern evangelicals.
For Lutherans, justification provides the power by which Christians can grow in holiness. Such improvement comes about in the believer only after he has become a new creation in Christ. This improvement is not completed in this life: Christians are always "saint and sinner at the same time" (simul iustus et peccator) — saints because they are holy in God's eyes, for Christ's sake, and do works that please Him; sinners because they continue to sin until death.
Anglican views
The eleventh article of the Thirty-Nine Articles makes clear that Anglicans believe that justification cannot be earned ("We are accounted righteous before God... not for our own works or deservings") and therefore the Anglicanism of the authors of the Thirty-Nine Articles is, on this issue, fully Protestant.
High Church (Anglo-Catholics) Anglicans often follow Catholicism and Orthodoxy in believing both man and God are involved in justification. "Justification has an objective and a subjective aspect. The objective is the act of God in Christ restoring the covenant and opening it to all people. The subjective aspect is faith, trust in the divine factor, acceptance of divine mercy. Apart from the presence of the subjective aspect there is no justification. People are not justified apart from their knowledge or against their will...God forgives and accepts sinners as they are into the divine fellowship, and that these sinners are in fact changed by their trust in the divine mercy." (Theological Questions, Thomas, C. Owen, pp. 81-82, sometime Fiske Professor of Systematic Theology, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, MA). Justification, the establishment of a relationship with God through Christ, and sanctification go hand in hand.
Reformed views
Calvin's understanding of justification was in substantial agreement with Luther's. However, he expanded it by emphasizing that justification is a part of one's union with Christ. His theological center was different from Luther's, and his terminology was more systematic. The center of Calvin's soteriology was our Union with Christ (Inst., III.xi.10). For Calvin, one is united to Christ by faith, and all of the benefits of Christ come from being united to him. Therefore, anyone who is justified will also receive all of the benefits of salvation, including sanctification. Thus, while Calvin agreed in substance with the "simultaneously saint and sinner" formulation (Inst. III.xiii), he was more definite in asserting that the result of being justified is a consequent sanctification (III.xiv.19; III.xvi). Calvin also used more definite language than Luther, spelling out the exchange notion of imputed righteousness: that the good works that Jesus did in his life (collectively referred to as the active obedience of Christ) are imputed to his people, while their sins were imputed to him on the cross.
For Calvin, Adam and Jesus functioned as federal heads, or legal representatives, meaning that each one represented his people through his actions (II.i.8). When Adam sinned, all of Adam's people were accounted to have sinned at that moment. When Jesus achieved righteousness, all of his people were accounted to be righteous at that moment. In this way Calvin attempted to simultaneously solve the problems of original sin, justification, and atonement.
Some of the technical details of this union with Christ are tied into Calvin's understanding of the atonement and of predestination.
One outcome of Calvin's change in center over against Luther was that he saw justification as a permanent feature of being connected to Christ: since, for Calvin, people are attached to Christ monergistically, it is therefore impossible for them to lose justification if indeed they were once justified. This idea was expressed by the Synod of Dort as the "perseverance of the saint."
In recent times, two controversies have arisen in the Reformed churches over justification. The first concerns the teaching of "final justification" by Norman Shepherd; the second is the exact relationship of justification, sanctification, and church membership, which is part of a larger controversy concerning the Federal Vision.
Methodist views
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was heavily influenced by the thoughts of Jacob Arminius and the Governmental theory of atonement. Hence, he held that God's work in us consisted of Prevenient grace, which undoes the effects of sin sufficiently that we may then freely choose to believe. An individual's act of faith then results in becoming part of the body of Christ, which allows one to appropriate Christ's atonement for oneself, erasing the guilt of sin. According to the Articles of Religion in the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church: However, once the individual has been so justified, one must then continue in the new life given; if one fails to persevere and in fact falls away from God in total unbelief, the attachment to Christ — and with it, justification — may be lost.
Other views
Universalism became a significant minority view in the 18th century, popularized by thinkers such as John Murray (the American, not the Scot). Universalism holds that Christ's death on the cross has entirely paid for the sin of humanity; hence, God's wrath is satisfied towards all. Different varieties of universalism then go in different directions. Liberal Unitarian Universalism holds that many different religions all lead to God. Others teach that God's love is sufficient to cover for sins, thus embracing some form of the moral influence theory of Peter Abelard. For many universalists, justification either was accomplished once and for all in the Crucifiction, or is altogether unnecessary.
Interactions between various doctrines
Sola fide
Luther's reformulation of justification introduced the phrase sola fide, or by faith alone. That phrase has been one of the uniting factors among various Protestant denominations; despite the wide variety of doctrines and practices among Protestants, they all agree that one is saved (often meaning "justified") by faith alone.
Roman Catholics from the Diet of Worms and Council of Trent until the present day (e.g., Sungenis) have criticized this phrase on several grounds. First and foremost, it appears to them to indicate that one can be justified without any actual change of life. Hence the strong language of Trent: If any one saith, that men are justified, either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ, or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and is inherent in them; or even that the grace, whereby we are justified, is only the favour of God; let him be anathema .
Second, Roman Catholics point out that the only use of the formula "faith alone" (sola fide) is in James 2:24, which appears to deny the sola fide concept: "You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone." Hence, they claim that Scripture upholds their rejection of sola fide justification.
Third, Roman Catholics claim that the term sola fide has many different subtleties of meaning among different groups of Protestants. They maintain that these differences cast doubt on the coherence of the concept of sola fide.
Within Protestantism, there is debate as to how strongly sanctification is tied to justification. Thus, in modern times, the "Lordship Salvation" controversy between some faculty at Dallas Seminary (Charles Ryrie and Zane C. Hodges) and others (John F. MacArthur and R.C. Sproul) has resulted in serious thinking on this question: can one be justified without any evidence of sanctification whatsoever?
(It should be noted that this question, however important, is a misunderstanding of the Lordship Salvation controversy. The proposition that all genuine born again people will do some good works is common ground, since grace advocates Wilkin, Ryrie and Hodges have all concurred that they will. [see, Wilkin, “Are Good Works Inevitable?” Grace in Focus, February 1990, Ryrie, So Great Salvation, and Hodges, "We Believe in: Assurance of Salvation" The Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society, 1990] In the Lordship debate, the question is: can true believers commit 'apostasy'?)
Looking at this controversy from the outside, Roman Catholics claim that "justification by faith alone" does not have a coherent meaning.
Protestants meanwhile hold tenaciously to the sola fide formula, charging that without it, the Christian is led down a path that is inevitably Pelagian and Judaizing. They charge that the abuses Luther saw were a logical outworking of a Roman Catholic system that includes good works as a necessary condition for justification. They respond to the argument from James 2:24 (above) by asserting that the passage in question refers to demonstrating one's justification before men, rather than achieving justification before God.
Despite these differences, Roman Catholics and most Lutherans as represented by most of the Lutheran councils worldwide that agreed with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), believe that they have found much agreement on the subject of justification. Other Lutherans, especially Confessional Lutherans, maintain that this agreement fails to properly define the meaning of faith, sin, and other essential terms and thus do not support the Lutheran World Federation's agreement. Likewise, Catholics affirming the real and serious differences between the decrees of the Council of Trent and the normative Lutheran documents collected in the 1580 Book of Concord equally reject the 1999 "JDDJ" as fatally flawed. In July 2006 the World Methodist Council, representing 70 million Wesleyan Christians, including The United Methodist Church, "signed on" to the Joint Declaration on Justification between Roman Catholics and the Lutheran World Federation.
Anglican bishop N.T. Wright has written extensively on the topic of justification, see also New Perspective on Paul. His views are troubling to many evangelicals, and have sparked some debate. Those concerned with his view of justification worry that he marginalizes the importance of the penal substitutionary transaction that takes place at salvation. Defenders of Wright respond by saying that, while the bishop acknowledges advocacy of penal substitution in many biblical texts, he does not see its application in scriptures other evangelicals might. Proponents of Wright's view of justification warn detractors to "read him well" before criticizing his theology forthright.
See also
External links
Ecumenical
Orthodox
Roman Catholic
Arminian/Methodist
Calvinist
Lutheran
Sources
Essays
- Bouman, H. J. A. "." Concordia Theological Monthly 26 (1955) no. 11:801-819.
- Klann, Richard. "" Concordia Theological Quarterly 45 (1981) no. 4:281-296.
- Martens, Gottfried. "Agreement and Disagreement on Justification by Faith Alone" Concordia Theological Quarterly 65 (2001) no. 3:195-223.
- Mueller, Theodore. "." Concordia Theological Quarterly 46 (1982) no. 1:21-38.
- Preus, Robert D. "" Concordia Theological Quarterly 48 (1984) no. 1:1-15.
- Warth, Martim C. "." Concordia Theological Quarterly 46 (1982) no. 2-3:105-126.
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Audio
- by Siegbert Becker
- with Rod Rosenbladt
- with Mark Mattes
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