The blessings of justification

God, the Judge of all the earth, justifies you through your faith in the appointed Mediator, Jesus Christ His Son, who died to bear the sins of the world. God’s Law is honoured in His Son, who obeyed it thoroughly throughout his life, and paid it penalty on the cross of Calvary. Through faith in his Name, believers pass from death unto life, from under condemnation unto a state of justification.

Justification is a once-for-all pronouncement from God who thereby reckons the believer in Christ as righteous in His sight. Justification is the opposite of condemnation. This is proved by the following Scriptures:

1. Romans 8:33-34: Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?

2. Proverbs 17:15: He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord.

3. Deuteronomy 25:1: If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

Justification does not change your character or personality; it is God’s judicial sentence in your favour.

Many blessings flow from justification; the following are just a few:

1. Peace with God. “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

2. Exultation in hope of God's glory. “Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2) New Testament hope is the assurance of something not yet fully experienced, and quite different from uncertain, wishful thinking. That justification will not be reversed is guaranteed here and now by the love of God that the Holy Spirit pours into believers’ hearts (vv.4,5).

3. Deliverance from divine wrath. “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:9). Keeping for final salvation those who have already been justified is simply God following through His initial purpose of love to them. The decisive, and more costly expression of this loving purpose was Christ’s actual reconciling death, which guarantees the justification and glorification of those for whom he died (Romans 8:32).

4. Holiness of life: justification is the only proper ground and basis of true sanctification, Galatians 5:13-14. The justified believer will inevitably and naturally lead a holy life; he will seek to please God and express his thankfulness for God’s great love toward him.

5. Forgiveness of sins. Intimately bound, and issuing from justification is the cancellation of all the believer’s sins, past, present and future. In the context of explaining justification, Paul quotes David on forgiveness: “Blessed are those whose lawless deed are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin” (Romans 4:6-8). That he means complete forgiveness we gather from other portions of Scripture: “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13,14).