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I. Justified before God — at the time of salvation.
II. Justified before men — after salvation.
III. Justified before the judgment seat of Christ — at the Lord’s coming.
According to the order in 1 Corinthians 6:11, justification follows sanctification. Holiness is God’s nature, whereas righteousness is His procedure. Sanctification causes us to be according to God’s nature, and justification makes us right according to His procedure. If we are not according to His nature, we cannot be right according to His procedure. Therefore, in the order of God’s salvation, we are first sanctified and then justified; we are first made according to His nature and then made right according to His procedure. This is not to say that we obtain sanctification and justification at different times. No, we obtain both simultaneously at the time of our salvation. However, in considering the order of blessing in God’s salvation, sanctification comes before justification.
Justification means that God declares man to be righteous according to His very righteousness.
According to the Scriptures, there are three aspects of justification. The first aspect is before God, which we obtained when we believe. In other words, once we are saved, we are justified, or we may say that once we are justified, we are saved, since God’s salvation includes justification. A justified person is a saved person.
1. “Not justified out of works of law”; “Out of the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before Him”; “All our righteousnesses are like a soiled garment”; “How then can a man be righteous with God?”; “There is none righteous, not even one” (Gal. 2:16; Rom. 3:20; Isa. 64:6; Job 25:4; Rom. 3:10).
Since justification is God’s declaration that a man is righteous according to His righteousness, it is not possible for a man to be justified by the works of the law. God’s righteousness is absolutely perfect, but no one is perfect before the law of God. Thus, no flesh, that is, no fleshly person, can be justified before God by the works of the law. Not only is our unrighteousness unable to stand before God’s righteousness, but even our righteousnesses are like a soiled garment before His righteousness. We are unable to meet God’s righteous requirement. It is not possible for us to be justified before God through the works of the law or through behavior. Perhaps our behavior is better than others, but it is short compared to God’s righteousness. According to God’s righteousness, there is none righteous, not even one.
2. “Having been justified by His grace” (Titus 3:7 see also Rom. 3:24).
Because of man’s weakness, no one can be justified before God by the law. However, any person can be justified by God by His grace. The law requires that man be perfect in order to be justified out of works of the law, but no one can do this. In justification by grace, however, God freely fulfills all His righteous requirements so that justification can be received and obtained by every man. God accomplished everything for us so that we might be justified freely without any effort or doing on our part; this is grace. What we cannot accomplish by the law, we can obtain through grace.
3. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).
We are justified by grace through the redemption of the Lord Jesus. Without the Lord Jesus accomplishing redemption for us on the cross to satisfy God’s righteous requirement, God could not justify us by His grace even if He so desired. God’s justifying grace cannot come to us apart from the Lord’s redemption. When someone pays for a Bible, it can be freely given. Similarly, God can give us His justifying grace because the Lord paid the price of redemption.
4. “Having now been justified in His blood” (Rom 5:9).
The blood of the Lord Jesus is the sign of His death for us. Therefore, the blood is the price He paid to redeem us. The price of this blood satisfied all the requirements of God’s righteousness upon us. Hence, this blood causes God’s grace to justify us according to His righteousness. The Lord’s blood accomplished what we could never accomplish through our behavior before God’s righteous law. We can be justified before God’s righteousness in the Lord’s blood.
5. “Raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
The Lord’s death and shed blood satisfied all God’s righteous demands, and the Lord’s resurrection is the very proof and guarantee of God’s righteous requirement being satisfied. Since the Lord’s death and blood fulfilled all God’s righteous requirements, God raised Him from the dead for our justification. Before God, the Lord’s blood acts as the foundation and declaration of our justification, and the Lord’s resurrection serves as the guarantee and proof of our justification. Since the Lord’s blood satisfied all God’s righteous requirements, the Lord’s resurrection causes us to be justified and accepted before God.
6. “Justified by faith”; “Justified out of faith in Christ” (Rom. 3:28; Gal. 2:16 see also Rom. 5:1; Gal. 3:8, 24).
The Bible definitely tells us that man’s justification before God is not, and cannot be, by works; it is only by faith. Works are related to what we can do; faith is related to what Christ has accomplished for us. Works require our effort, but faith receives and obtains without effort. None of us can truly work, but all of us can believe.
Faith believes in the Lord and in what He has done for us. He died and shed His blood to accomplish redemption, satisfying God’s righteous requirement so that God can justify us according to His righteousness. Then the Lord was raised from the dead so that we may be justified before God. However, if we do not believe, we will have no share in Him and what He did, and we will not obtain God’s justification through His redemption. We must believe, being one with Him by faith, believing into Him, and receiving Him and what He has done for us by faith. Then we will partake of Him and His redemption, obtaining God’s justification through His redemption in Him.
7. “You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
Once we believe and receive the Lord and what He did by faith, His name and the Spirit of God justify us. His name justifies us in name, and the Spirit of God justifies us in reality. Once we are one with the Lord by faith, we share in Him. His name causes us to be justified in name and position, and the Spirit of God causes us to experience God’s justification in reality.
8. “Justified in Christ” (Gal. 2:17).
We are not only justified by the Lord’s blood, by His resurrection, and in His name, but we are also justified in Him. If we are not in Him, the Lord’s blood, the Lord’s resurrection, and the Lord’s name have nothing to do with us. We can partake of Him, His blood, His resurrection, and His name because we are joined to the Lord and have entered into Him by faith. By being in His resurrection and His name, we are justified by God. We are justified in Christ and by Christ, never in ourselves or by ourselves.
9. “Justified freely” (Rom. 3:24).
Our justification is free because of the grace of God, which comes through the Lord’s redemption by His blood and which is in Him. It is not related to any price we paid, any of our works, or anything in ourselves.
10. “From all the things...you were...justified” (Acts 13:39).
Our being justified freely by God’s grace through the Lord’s redemption, by His blood, and in Him is not merely from a few things but from all things. Once we believe, we are justified by God from all things.
11. “It is God who justifies” (Rom. 8:33).
It is God who justifies us in the Lord upon our believing. It was not we ourselves or others but God who justified us. We are justified by the only One who can condemn us and also forgive our sins. Since He justified us, who can accuse us and condemn us?
12. “Who became...to us from God...righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:30).
God not only justified us through the redemption of the Lord Jesus, declaring us righteous according to His righteousness and giving us His righteousness (Rom. 3:22; Phil. 3:9). He even made the Lord Jesus Himself our righteousness. Once we believe into Christ, we are in Christ. God causes us to be in Him, clothed with Him, and covered by Him so that He might be our righteousness. Just as He is righteous and acceptable before God, we also are righteous and acceptable before God in Him. We obtained this when we were saved.
The Bible shows that the second aspect of justification is before men. We obtain this gradually after we are saved.
1. “A man is justified by works” (James 2:24).
When we were saved, the justification we obtained before God was by faith and had nothing to do with works. But after we are saved, our justification before men is by works, not by faith. Faith caused us to be justified by God at the time of our salvation; works cause us to be justified by men after our salvation. Although a person is justified by God through faith at the time of salvation, he may not necessarily be justified by man through works after salvation. After we are saved, we must bring forth the fruits of repentance and live righteously with righteous behavior by the life and the Spirit within us. We will then be a righteous person who does righteousness and is justified by men.
2. “Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works” (Matt. 5:16).
After we were saved and justified by God, we became children of light. Following our salvation, we must be children of light, letting the light of life in us shine before men so that they may see our good works and call us righteous.
3. “We exercise foresight for what is honorable not only in the sight of the Lord but also in the sight of men” (2 Cor. 8:21).
We should exercise foresight for what is honorable in the sight of men in order to match our justified status. Otherwise, even though we may be justified before God, we will not appear to be justified before men.
4. “He who serves Christ in this is well pleasing to God and approved by men” (Rom. 14:18).
After our salvation we should live a life of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit to serve Christ. If we do, we will not only be well pleasing to God but also approved by men, that is, justified by men and before men.
Although our justification before God does not require works, we should do works before men after we are justified by God in order to be justified by them. We say that we are a Christian, but our behavior may speak to the contrary. We say that God has justified us, but our works may not be that of a righteous man of God. We say that we have faith before God, but there is no testimony of works before men. Faith is before God; works are before men. Many brothers do not have a testimony of works before their wives, so they cannot be justified by their wives. Many sisters do not shine out the light of life before their husbands, so they are not approved by their husbands. There are also many brothers and sisters who are without shining and righteous works in the presence of their colleagues, schoolmates, relatives, and neighbors, so they do not obtain praises from them. I dare not say that such persons are not saved, but they are not justified before men, even though they have been justified before God. After our salvation we must, by the Lord’s grace, have a testimony before men with righteous works so that our being and doing will match God’s justification in order to be justified by men.
The third aspect of our justification is before the judgment seat of Christ. This will occur when our Lord comes back to judge the saints.
1. “I am conscious of nothing against myself; but I am not justified in this, but He who examines me is the Lord...until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then there will be praise to each from God” (1 Cor. 4:4-5).
In many places in the books of Romans, Galatians, and Philippians, Paul clearly and definitely states that he was justified before God. But in 1 Corinthians he speaks of the justification that will be obtained when the Lord comes again to judge the saints, not of the justification obtained at salvation, and for this he had no assurance that he would be justified by the Lord. This justification is based on our being and our doing, our works and our living, after salvation. Our life and work, our being and doing, determine whether we will be justified by the Lord when He comes to judge the saints. The Lord will judge us and decide whether we are righteous according to our work, action, thought, and counsel.
2. “We must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done through the body according to what he has practiced, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).
At the Lord’s coming, those who are saved will be judged before His judgment seat to receive the things they have done, according to what they practiced, whether good or bad. This is the judgment at the judgment seat of Christ, and it is different from the judgment at the great white throne. The world will be judged at the great white throne to determine who will be saved or who will perish. The judgment seat of Christ is related to whether the saints should be rewarded or punished; it does not concern our salvation. This judgment is based on our work after our salvation. If our work and actions please the Lord, we will be approved and justified by Him at His judgment. This justification is in the future, and it is related to our reward, not our salvation.
