Justification is an act of God

On Saturday, Feb. 8, this awesome newspaper published an article written by me entitled, “Salvation is Justification.” Today, I want to be sure, we all understand the doctrine of Justification and how it affects how we live.

Romans 4:5 says this about Jesus Christ. It says, “Who (Jesus) was delivered for our offences (sins) and was raised again for our justification.” Let’s be clear, Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by God for our justification. Wow!!!

Justification comes from the word, “justified.” In the Old Testament, justified comes from the Hebrew word, “taadaq,” which means “to make right, clean, clear and to be just and righteous. In the New Testament justified comes from the Greek word “dikaioo,” which means “to render just or innocent or to be free and righteous.” To be plain and simple, to be justified means to be right before and with God. It means to be innocent of any sin committed. Justified is by far, a legal term.

To be justified through justification is your ticket to Salvation, Heaven and Eternal Life. You cannot be saved without being justified by God. You are not going to heaven without being justified by God. You cannot have eternal life without being justified by God. You cannot justify yourself. Only God can do this for you.

The number one question for humanity is how can I be justified. The answer to that question is found in the Word of God. It is specifically in the Book of Genesis and the Book of Romans.

You are justified through God’s act of Justification. Justification is an act of God whereby He declares the sinner righteous in Christ on the basis of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Afterall, it was Jesus who proclaimed on the cross, “it is finished.”

God makes this declaration upon you the moment He sees you confess Jesus Christ and He sees in your heart that you believe God raised Jesus from the dead. Romans 9:10 says with the heart man believes unto righteousness” In essence, there are only two people who know for sure you are saved: Only you and God.

There are no degrees of justification. Each Believer has the same right standing before God. Each believer is holy, without blame, adopted, part of God’s elect and a son of God. There is no respect for a person by God. We are all children in his sight..

When God declares a sinner righteous, He puts or imputs the righteousness of Christ on our record in the place of our own sinfulness. And nobody can change that. To live your life or to walk in this knowledge, you must walk by faith and not by sight.

A good example of this truth is a person who is looking for a job who has a criminal record.The person with a criminal record will be turned down for a job 99% of the time. But if that person is saved, he/she must walk by faith believing that his/her record is clean because God has declared them righteous. And sooner or later, by faith, God will provide the perfect job for that person who has a criminal record or a bad past.

I am a witness of this because I have a criminal record. But that criminal record is not who I am. I am who God says I am. In the eyes of potential employees, my record may depict me as a potential bad and risky hire. But unlike people, God looks at every justified Believer and deals with every Justified Believer as though they have never sinned. And if God be for you, who can be against you.

God’s doctrine of justification actually started in the Old Testament with Abraham. When God first approached Abraham, Abraham and his family did not know the One and True Living God. In fact, they were a family that worshipped idol gods. But Genesis 15:6 says this about sinful Abraham; “And he believed in the Lord and He counted it to him for righteousness.” When Abraham believed God, God declared him righteous. In the end, Abraham became the Father of Faith and the Father of many nations.

The word belief comes from a Hebrew root, “aman” meaning to establish or confirm. Belief is an important concept in the Bible, because a person must believe God in order to be saved from sin. Whenever the Scriptures state that a person believes in the Lord, it signals that the person has made a decision to treat God’s word as certain and to do what God wants.

Don’t confuse justification with sanctification. Sanctification is the process whereby God makes the Believer more and more like Jesus. Sanctification may change from day to day but justification never changes. Have you believed unto justification!