A Brief Bible Study |
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Your Bible Lesson For The Day
What Is Justification?
Justification. What is it? What does it mean to you?
It means everything to you! Justification is not some bit of trivial information to amuse you that you can then forget and toss into the waste basket. Oh no! It is the most important teaching in the Bible! Your eternal life in heaven depends upon your knowing it. Do you, indeed, know what it is? Let the Bible explain it to you.
Deuteronomy 25:1 says, “If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges settle their dispute, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, . . .” This verse clarifies that justify means the opposite of condemn. In a court of law when the judge justifies the defendant, he declares the accused innocent, not guilty, that the accused is righteous, acquitted, and not subject to any punishment. Justification, then, is a judicial act in which a judge declares the accused person righteous.
Luke 7:29 states, “And all the people and the tax collectors, after they heard him, justified God, by having been baptized with the baptism of John.” In this verse the people justified God and declared God was right. So it is again clear that the word justify means to declare righteous. In the Bible there are numberous verses in which the word “justify” means “to declare righteous.”
In the Bible God is the Judge who graciously justifies sinners, that is, he declares them righteous and not guilty, not because they themselves are righteous, but for the sake of Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice that purified them from their sins. As 1 John 1:7 says, “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
When the Bible says that God declares sinners righteous and not guilty, that is the same thing as saying the sinners’ sins are forgiven. And that is exactly what the apostle Paul stated when he quoted David from Psalm 32. In Romans 4:6-8 Paul quoted David, saying, “. . . just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness without works, “BLESSED ARE THEY WHOSE WICKED DEEDS WERE DISMISSED AND WHOSE SINS WERE COVERED; BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NEVER TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.”
What, then, is justification? It is a judicial act of God in which he declares the sinner righteous and his sins forgiven. Justification, being declared righteous, is synonymous with being declared forgiven. And now you know what justification is and why it is so important to you. It is God declaring you righteous and forgiven for the sake of Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice on the cross that purified you from all your sins. Doesn’t that good news fill your heart with comfort and gladness?
It means everything to you! Justification is not some bit of trivial information to amuse you that you can then forget and toss into the waste basket. Oh no! It is the most important teaching in the Bible! Your eternal life in heaven depends upon your knowing it. Do you, indeed, know what it is? Let the Bible explain it to you.
Deuteronomy 25:1 says, “If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges settle their dispute, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, . . .” This verse clarifies that justify means the opposite of condemn. In a court of law when the judge justifies the defendant, he declares the accused innocent, not guilty, that the accused is righteous, acquitted, and not subject to any punishment. Justification, then, is a judicial act in which a judge declares the accused person righteous.
Luke 7:29 states, “And all the people and the tax collectors, after they heard him, justified God, by having been baptized with the baptism of John.” In this verse the people justified God and declared God was right. So it is again clear that the word justify means to declare righteous. In the Bible there are numberous verses in which the word “justify” means “to declare righteous.”
In the Bible God is the Judge who graciously justifies sinners, that is, he declares them righteous and not guilty, not because they themselves are righteous, but for the sake of Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice that purified them from their sins. As 1 John 1:7 says, “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”
When the Bible says that God declares sinners righteous and not guilty, that is the same thing as saying the sinners’ sins are forgiven. And that is exactly what the apostle Paul stated when he quoted David from Psalm 32. In Romans 4:6-8 Paul quoted David, saying, “. . . just as David speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness without works, “BLESSED ARE THEY WHOSE WICKED DEEDS WERE DISMISSED AND WHOSE SINS WERE COVERED; BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NEVER TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.”
What, then, is justification? It is a judicial act of God in which he declares the sinner righteous and his sins forgiven. Justification, being declared righteous, is synonymous with being declared forgiven. And now you know what justification is and why it is so important to you. It is God declaring you righteous and forgiven for the sake of Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice on the cross that purified you from all your sins. Doesn’t that good news fill your heart with comfort and gladness?
