JUSTICE AND JUSTIFICATION JUSTICE AND JUSTIFICATION. In human sense it is the practice and maintenance of what is good and right, upholding what is just. God told his people that what He required of them was to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God, in Micah 6:8 says ... No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humble with your God. Moses taught the Israelites that it was wrong to show partiality when judging a case, and the Books of Proverbs warns against tthe wicked who will pervert justice by accepting bribes. Pauls great discussion of sin and justification in Romans 5 is so crucial to Christian doctrine that it takes a great deal of time to comprehend it. As with sanctification and faith, the doctrine of justification is made a little more difficult for users of English because roots that are the same in the original are different in English due to the dual origin of the tongue. Our words just, justice, justify, and justification are from the Latin; our words righteous and righteousness are from the Anglo-Saxon. Even though these words havd different roots...they are from the same family of meaning, and they are used to translate a group of Greek words which all come from the basic root for justice, justify, righteousness. Justify (dikaioo). Justify os used thirty-nine times in the New Testament, fifteen times in Romans and eight times in Galatians alone. But what does Justify mean? The popular definition just as if I would never never sinned ... is easy to remember, but not very accurate. That definition would stress forgiveness- a subtraction of sin, while justification implies something more ...merely that one is just or righteous in Jesus Christ. The BIG QUESTION is this: Does justify mean to make righteous or to declare righteous? The answer of the Reformers is that justification means to declare righteous, ...for example in Luke 7:29, the tax collectors are said to have justified God. Obviously, it cannot mean they made Him righteous (he already was), so it must, here at least mean to declare righteous. ( see also 1 Timothy 3:16, where Christ is said to be justified in Spirit.). Making us righteous is properly the doctrine if sanctification. IN Romans 3:24, Paul writes that we are justified freely by His Grace and in verse 28 that a person is justified by faith. ...This is no contradiction---faith is the channel--GRACE IS THE SOURCE. Not only are we justified by GRACE through FAITH, but the great apostle also tells us that Having Now Been Justified by HIS BLOOD,... we shall be saved from wrath through Him in Romans 5:9 says, And since we have been made right in Gods sight by the blood of of Christ, he will certainly save us from Gods condemnation. And in Romans 5:10-11 says, For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of the Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our LORD Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. This declaration by God is no legal fiction. He credits Christs perfect righteousness to our spiritual account, having put our sin on His account. This called imputation.. James 2 speaks of being justified by works, and some have said that he is writing to contradict to Paul. This is absurd. In the first place, nearly all scholars agree that James was written years before Romans, Actually, Paul and James are not contradictory- they simply are not talking about the same thing. Paul is writing that we cannot earn justification before God---justification comes by FAITH only. James is writing that if our Faith does not show in our actions that is not faith. Abraham and Rahab showed their faith in God by their actions....their actions did not earn them justification..BUT THEY SHOWED THAT FAITH WAS REAL WITHIN. Justification (dikaiosis). Justification is used only twice in the Greek New Testament, and both examples are in Romans. Jesus our Lord was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification (Roamns 4:25). The same prepostion (dia plus the accusative) is used in both clasuses, and both are translated because of in the NKJV> If we take the verse as it stands ... it means that Christ died for our sins (taught throughout the New Testament) and that God raised Him up because of His successful work of justifying believing sinners. Romans 5:18 teaches that Adams act of disobedience brought condemnation to all people and Christs righteous act resulted in JUSTICATION OF LIFE. To summarize, to justify, in the New Testament theological sense is TO DECLARE, TO ACKNOWLEDGE, OR TO TREAT SOMEONE AS RIGHTEOUS OR JUST. The result of justification and the One to whom credit is due for that justification are spelled out in Romans 5:1: Therefore, having been justified by Faith, we have peace with God through our LORD Jesus Christ.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 04:43:46 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015