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Justification is a key item in God’s full salvation. After obtaining the forgiveness of sins and the cleansing away of sins, and after being sanctified, we have no further problems before God. God then has the position and the ground to justify us. This is another crucial link in our enjoyment of God’s full salvation.
1) “For the showing forth of His righteousness... that He should be just and justify the one who is of the faith of Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
In the Bible, justification means that God, according to His righteousness, declares man righteous. In other words, God justifies man according to the standard of His righteousness.
1) “...shall be justified before Him [God]” (Rom. 3:20).
God’s justification is in two aspects, the objective and the subjective. Objective justification is our being justified positionally according to the righteousness which we received from God (Phil. 3:9); it is our being justified by having Christ as our righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). We obtain this justification by reason of the following four items:
1) “Being justified freely by His [God’s] grace” (Rom. 3:24).
Man’s being justified by God is, first, by God’s grace. God’s justifying us by His grace is His freely fulfilling all His righteous requirements for us. This justification can be accepted and received by everyone without human effort and without price; therefore, it is grace.
1) “Being justified...through the redemption in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).
God can justify us by His grace through the redemption of Christ Jesus. Apart from the shedding of the blood of the Lord Jesus on the cross to accomplish redemption for us and to satisfy God’s righteous requirement, there is no ground and no way for God to justify us by His grace, even if He desires to do so. However, because on the cross the Lord Jesus shed His precious blood, paid the price, and satisfied all the requirements of God’s righteousness upon us (Rom. 5:9), God is able to justify us by His grace according to His righteousness.
1) “Yet knowing that a man is not justified by works of law, but through the faith of Christ Jesus” (Gal. 2:16).
Man is justified by God not only by God’s grace and through the redemption of Christ Jesus, but also through his faith in Christ. Both the grace of God and the redemption of Christ Jesus are on God’s side, whereas the faith in Jesus Christ is on our side. By His grace, and through the redemption of Christ Jesus, God would justify us and can justify us; yet for us to be justified by God, there is still the need of our faith in Jesus Christ.
1) “Who [Jesus]...was raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
The resurrection of Christ is a proof of our justification. The death of Christ satisfied God’s righteous requirements that God may justify us. Christ’s resurrection is God’s justification and approval of His work; hence, it is also a proof of His work.
2) “...concerning righteousness, because I [Christ] go to the Father” (John 16:10).
Christ’s ascension to the Father in heaven after He was resurrected is also a proof of our justification, even as the third stanza of Hymns, #20 says:
Father God, Thou hast accepted
Jesus as our Substitute;
Judged the Just One for the unjust,
Couldst Thou change Thy attitude?
As a proof of perfect justice,
At Thine own right hand He sits;
He, as Thy full satisfaction,
Righteously Thy need befits.
Christ’s resurrection, ascension, and being seated at the right hand of God are a proof of our justification by God, confirming that God has justified us because of Christ’s death, which satisfied God’s righteous requirements.
1) “...so also through one righteous act unto justification of life to all men” (Rom. 5:18).
We have obtained the objective and positional justification by God’s grace, through the redemption of Christ Jesus, and through our faith. This affords us the position to receive God’s life, as stated in this verse, “...unto justification of life.”
1) “Having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which is through Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:11).
When we live by God’s life, which we received in our positional justification, we bear the fruit of righteousness through the Lord Jesus. This fruit is Christ as our righteousness, whom we live out by God’s life, that we may be subjectively justified. This justification, which is of life, is not obtained outwardly but is lived out from within. Hence, it is subjective.
1) “Who [Jesus]...was raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
We are subjectively justified also through the resurrected Christ. The resurrection of Christ mentioned in this verse is not only an outward proof of our objective justification; it is also for Christ to enter into us to be our life (Col. 1:27; 3:4), that we may live Him out as our subjective righteousness and thus be subjectively justified. We obtain objective justification because we believe into Christ and gain Him as our objective righteousness; we obtain subjective justification because we live by Christ and live Him out as our subjective righteousness. Objective justification causes us to have life; subjective justification enables us to grow in life and be transformed unto maturity.
1) “...you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 6:11).
To be in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, to be in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This speaks of our organic union with the Lord, our partaking of His divine life and nature, and our becoming subjectively righteous. That is, it speaks of our being joined to Christ in Christ to become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21b).
1) “You were justified...in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
We experience subjective justification also in the Spirit of God. When we were saved, the Spirit of God entered into us to bring to us the life of God, that we may be justified subjectively by God in life. Therefore, we obtain subjective justification in life by God’s life, through the resurrected Christ, in His person, and in the Spirit of God.
The six steps of experience from forgiveness to justification are all in the redemptive aspect of God’s full salvation. These six steps constitute a perpetual cycle in the believers’ experience of the spiritual life, until the redemption of their bodies, that is, until their glorification. At the same time, repentance, which is the way to enjoy salvation, also accompanies this cycle according to the need of these six steps of experience. Before the redemption of our body, it is inevitable that we fail or become defiled. Whenever we fail or are defiled, we need to repent that we may again be forgiven, cleansed, propitiated, reconciled, sanctified, and justified, in order to thus maintain our fellowship with God and to continue to live before God. Whenever we trespass and are again defiled, we must repent once more in order to again be forgiven, cleansed, propitiated, reconciled, sanctified, and justified. This then becomes a cycle of experience repeated again and again in our spiritual life, that we may continue in the enjoyment of God’s full salvation.
