What Is Justification?
Justification is a concept drawn from the courtroom: the judge's declaring of a person to be in the right. In Paul's letters the word carries the heart of the gospel: a person is justified before God not by fulfilling the works of the Law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Its model case is Abraham: 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.' Justification is neither self-deception nor God ignoring sin; for Paul its basis is Christ's death and resurrection: 'who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.' Its result is peace: 'Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.' In church history this teaching was moved back to the center especially in the Reformation and summarized as 'by grace alone, through faith alone'. Justification is the gospel word spoken to the anxious conscience: acceptance is not the reward of achievement but the gift of grace, and a good life is the fruit of that acceptance, not its cause.