Justification

[shawn38]

What is the righteousness contemplated by God in the verdict of justification of the ungodly?

Justification is not a process, but a judicial declaration by God as to our guilt or innocence regarding sin.

Rom 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

"What is the righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel?1. His own subjective character which demanded the death of His own son in order that He may justify the ungodly.

1. His own judgement on any other type or kind of righteousness which may be held up as suitable to persuade God to justify the ungodly. Once you know He had to send His son, no other righteousness will do.
2. His own grace gift of the righteous and the person of Jesus Christ who became to us the rightousness of God as we are united with Him in His death and resurrection. The righteousness of God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ revealed as a grace gift to His own people." R. Zins

Paul regarding himself:
Phil 3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

Paul regarding Abraham:
Rom 4:9 "…We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10 Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! …13 It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

This is under the chapter titled “Salvation” in Peter Kreeft’s book “Handbook of Christian Apologetics”. I quote it at length to show that the nonsensical back and forth between Catholics and Protestants on this issue is nothing more than a misunderstanding of terms. I’m skipping over the short history and going straight to the point:

"Both sides used key terms, faith and salvation, but in different senses.

1. Catholics used the term salvation to refer to the whole process, from its beginning in faith, through the whole Christian life of the works of love on earth, to its completion in heaven. When Luther spoke of salvation he meant the initial step-like getting into Noah’s ark of salvation-not the whole journey.
2. By faith Catholics meant only one of the three needed “theological virtues”(faith, hope, and love), faith being intellectual belief. To Luther, faith meant accepting Christ with your whole heart and soul.

Thus, since Catholics were using salvation in a bigger sense and faith in the smaller sense, and Luther was using salvation in the smaller sense and faith in the bigger sense, Catholic rightly deny and Luther rightly affirmed that we were saved by faith alone.

Catholics taught that salvation included more than faith, just as a plant includes more than its roots. It needs its stem(hope) and its fruits(love), as well as its roots(faith).
Luther taught that good works can’t buy salvation, that all you need to do and all you can do to be saved is to accept it, accept the Savior, by faith.

Both sides spoke the truth. Since truth cannot contradict truth, the two sides really did not contradict each other on this most important of all questions. That assessment may sound unduly optimistic, but it is essentially what Catholic and Lutheran theologians said publicly in their “Joint Statement on Justification” a few years ago. Pope John Paul II said the same thing publicly to the German Lutheran bishops. It both astonished and delighted them.

Such real agreement in substance beneath apparent disagreement in words should not be surprising, for both Catholics and Protestants accept the same data, the New Testament. The NT teaches both points: the Protestant point that salvation is a free gift, not earned by works of obedience to the law; and the Catholic point that faith is only the beginning of the Christian life of good works, that “justification”(being made right with God) must, if it is real, lead to “sanctification”(being made holy, saintly, good), that “faith without works is dead.”

Regarding that last point, the Scottish Presbyterian preacher George MacDonald wrote, “The notion that the salvation of Jesus is a salvation from punishment for our sins is a mean, selfish, low notion. He was called Savior because he would save us from our sins.”

The official teaching of Catholicism(as distinct from the popular misconception)is that salvation is a totally free gift that we can do nothing to “buy” or produce. The Council of Trent’s “Decree on Justification” is as insistent on the gratuitous nature of grace as Luther or Calvin. So is Aquinas in the Treatise on Grace in the Summa Theologiae, the bottom line of which is that we can do nothing without God’s grace-not be saved, not deserve grace, not even ask for grace.

It would be as absurd for Catholics and Protestants to disagree about this fundamental point of how to be saved as for two astronomers to disagree about whether stars exist. The answer is not in doubt because it is not in our theories but in our data, in Scripture.

Scripture clearly says that both salvation is a free gift to be accepted by faith(Romans and Galatians) and that “faith without works is dead”(James). “Works” means “love,” and “love” means “the works of love,” for Christian love(agape’) is not a feeling, like worldly love(eros, storge’, philia);if it were, it could not be commanded."

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

What is the righteousness contemplated by God in the verdict of justification of the ungodly?

Justification is not a process, but a judicial declaration by God as to our guilt or innocence regarding sin.

A pile of dung covered over with pure white snow, no matter how deeply, is still a pile of dung.

The bible is clear that when God confers grace on those whom He has chosen, most especially those who have received the sacraments, a real, ontological, albeit unperceivable, change has taken place in that person(2 Cor 5:17; Rom 6; John 6).

 

[shawn38]

A pile of dung covered over with pure white snow, no matter how deeply, is still a pile of dung.

The bible is clear that when God confers grace on those whom He has chosen, most especially those who have received the sacraments, a real, ontological, albeit unperceivable, change has taken place in that person(2 Cor 5:17; Rom 6; John 6).

What is the righteousness contemplated? The Jews did not know though they were zealous for God too.

Rom 10:1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

 

[shawn38]

1. Catholics used the term salvation to refer to the whole process, from its beginning in faith, through the whole Christian life of the works of love on earth, to its completion in heaven. When Luther spoke of salvation he meant the initial step-like getting into Noah’s ark of salvation-not the whole journey.

Was Paul justified through his works or faith? Faith!
Phil 3:9 “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

Abraham was in the middle of a great work, but was he justified by it? NO!
Romans 4 and Hebrews 11

 

[Third_Day]

=shawn38;6979122]

Justification is not a process, but a judicial declaration by God as to our guilt or innocence regarding sin.
"
Could you answer this question.
Was Adam "declared ’ to be a sinner or was he actually made a sinner by his rejection of God’s grace when he sinned?

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Was Paul justified through his works or faith? Faith!
Phil 3:9 “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

Abraham was in the middle of a great work, but was he justified by it? NO!
Romans 4 and Hebrews 11

False dichotomy. It’s not an “either-or” but a “both-and”(1 Cor 9:27; 1 Peter 1:17). I interpret “works of the Law” as the animal sacrifices done in the temple that merely “cover over” the sins of the Jews which really did nothing to change their hearts. Paul was justified by faith as well as by doing that which God commanded him to do, “to be a witness to the ends of the earth.” The better question is that if Paul did not proclaim Christ to the world but merely believed in Jesus would he still be justified?

And James writes “faith without works is dead” referring to the same episode in Genesis. Truth cannot contradict truth. So there seems to be something missing here, don’t your think?

If faith is all there is why does Paul write in 1 Cor 13:13 that love is greater than faith?

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

What is the righteousness contemplated? The Jews did not know though they were zealous for God too.

Rom 10:1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. 2 For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. 3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.

Care to rephrase the question? We are only but simple fishermen…

 

[Third_Day]

=shawn38;6979271]Was Paul justified through his works or faith? Faith!
Phil 3:9 “not having a righteousness **of my own **that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

Paul also said "For it is not the hears of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law who will be justified. " Romans 2:13

Paul is speaking of the moral law, the Ten Commandments. Nowhere does Paul say we are justified by faith “alone”.

Abraham was in the middle of a great work, but was he justified by it? NO! Romans 4 and Hebrews 11

James 2:21 “Was not our father Abraham justified by his works when he offered up his son Issac upon the altar?”

Where you are going wrong is your understanding of Pauls use of the word works.
Paul is saying we cannot be justified by works of human effort. Notice in Phil 3:9 Paul says “not having a righteous **of my own **that comes from the law.”
The Jews believed that they could work their way to heaven by keeping the law through human effort. Paul is saying that it is by grace and not human effort (works) that we are saved

IN Romans 2 :13 Paul says we shall be justified if we observe the moral law and James says Abraham was justifed by his works. Is this a contradiction? No. James and Paul are giving us Catholic theology. When we keep the moral law or do works of charity we are not doing them by human effort but by God’s grace. This is why James says we are "Justified by works (of grace) and not by simply faith alone.

 

[shawn38]

Care to rephrase the question? We are only but simple fishermen…

Gladly

God obviously justifies the unglodly on the basis of something before they can go to heaven. What is the ground, or righteousness, that God contemplates in the verdict of the justification of the ungodly? What does God take into consideration?

 

[Third_Day]

Shawn38, please answer this question.

Was Adam just "declared ’ to be a sinner by God or was he actually made a sinner when he sinned against God?

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Gladly

God obviously justifies the unglodly on the basis of something before they can go to heaven. What is the ground, or righteousness, that God contemplates in the verdict of the justification of the ungodly? What does God take into consideration?

(This where i will demonstrate that the differences on this point are merely verbal.)

The biblical answer is “faith”. But I ask you what kind of “faith” is it?

Is it merely the human free-will assent to the promises of God? If so is not this “faith” an act-or a WORK-of the human will and intellect?

Or is this “faith” a grace-a supernatural gift from God-that actually confers an ontological change in the person it is bestowed upon?

If “faith”-according to your interpretation of Paul-is all that is necessary, why does Paul write in 1 Cor 13:13 that love is greater than faith? Why in his letter to the Romans, does Paul write "love, not faith, “love is the fulfillment of the law”?

 

[JonNC]

This is under the chapter titled “Salvation” in Peter Kreeft’s book “Handbook of Christian Apologetics”. I quote it at length to show that the nonsensical back and forth between Catholics and Protestants on this issue is nothing more than a misunderstanding of terms. I’m skipping over the short history and going straight to the point:

"Both sides used key terms, faith and salvation, but in different senses.

1. Catholics used the term salvation to refer to the whole process, from its beginning in faith, through the whole Christian life of the works of love on earth, to its completion in heaven. When Luther spoke of salvation he meant the initial step-like getting into Noah’s ark of salvation-not the whole journey.
2. By faith Catholics meant only one of the three needed “theological virtues”(faith, hope, and love), faith being intellectual belief. To Luther, faith meant accepting Christ with your whole heart and soul.

Thus, since Catholics were using salvation in a bigger sense and faith in the smaller sense, and Luther was using salvation in the smaller sense and faith in the bigger sense, Catholic rightly deny and Luther rightly affirmed that we were saved by faith alone.

Catholics taught that salvation included more than faith, just as a plant includes more than its roots. It needs its stem(hope) and its fruits(love), as well as its roots(faith).
Luther taught that good works can’t buy salvation, that all you need to do and all you can do to be saved is to accept it, accept the Savior, by faith.

Both sides spoke the truth. Since truth cannot contradict truth, the two sides really did not contradict each other on this most important of all questions. That assessment may sound unduly optimistic, but it is essentially what Catholic and Lutheran theologians said publicly in their “Joint Statement on Justification” a few years ago. Pope John Paul II said the same thing publicly to the German Lutheran bishops. It both astonished and delighted them.

Such real agreement in substance beneath apparent disagreement in words should not be surprising, for both Catholics and Protestants accept the same data, the New Testament. The NT teaches both points: the Protestant point that salvation is a free gift, not earned by works of obedience to the law; and the Catholic point that faith is only the beginning of the Christian life of good works, that “justification”(being made right with God) must, if it is real, lead to “sanctification”(being made holy, saintly, good), that “faith without works is dead.”

Regarding that last point, the Scottish Presbyterian preacher George MacDonald wrote, “The notion that the salvation of Jesus is a salvation from punishment for our sins is a mean, selfish, low notion. He was called Savior because he would save us from our sins.”

The official teaching of Catholicism(as distinct from the popular misconception)is that salvation is a totally free gift that we can do nothing to “buy” or produce. The Council of Trent’s “Decree on Justification” is as insistent on the gratuitous nature of grace as Luther or Calvin. So is Aquinas in the Treatise on Grace in the Summa Theologiae, the bottom line of which is that we can do nothing without God’s grace-not be saved, not deserve grace, not even ask for grace.

It would be as absurd for Catholics and Protestants to disagree about this fundamental point of how to be saved as for two astronomers to disagree about whether stars exist. The answer is not in doubt because it is not in our theories but in our data, in Scripture.

Scripture clearly says that both salvation is a free gift to be accepted by faith(Romans and Galatians) and that “faith without works is dead”(James). “Works” means “love,” and “love” means “the works of love,” for Christian love(agape’) is not a feeling, like worldly love(eros, storge’, philia);if it were, it could not be commanded."

Grey,
I have reached essentially the same conclusion.

Jon

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

Grey,
I have reached essentially the same conclusion.

Jon

Amen Jon! And may God Bless you and yours!

 

[shawn38]

A pile of dung covered over with pure white snow, no matter how deeply, is still a pile of dung.

The bible is clear that when God confers grace on those whom He has chosen, most especially those who have received the sacraments, a real, ontological, albeit unperceivable, change has taken place in that person(2 Cor 5:17; Rom 6; John 6).

"*Pro 17:15 He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, Both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD. *
Is to justify the wicked to make them more wicked? No, but it’s pronounce that the wicked are justified. It’s a vindication.

And to condemn the just is not to make them evil. It is to declare a status of the just.

*Deut 25:1 “If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, *

To justify the just is not to make them more just. And to condemn the wicked isn’t to make them more evil. They’re pronouncements of judicial status.

*1 Cor 4:4 For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord. *

Paul could not even justify himself. He did not have the authority, but only God does.he.”

Lk 7:29 And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.

Was God made more just? No, but God was declared just in His decision.

Rom 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

This is declaration. This is an acquital and pronouncement of judicial status.

Rom 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

God is just in justifying the ungodly without bypassing justice as well. He did it by sending His Son who would qualify as the perfect law keeper and perfect sacrifice for the appeasement of sin.

*Rom 3:26 He did it to demonstrate hHis justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Rom 5:9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! *" R. Zins

 

[shawn38]

Grey,
I have reached essentially the same conclusion.

Jon

Do you believe God justifies the godly or ungodly?

 

[ryanoneil]

Justification is not a process, but a judicial declaration by God as to our guilt or innocence regarding sin.

Abraham was in the middle of a great work, but was he justified by it? NO!
Romans 4 and Hebrews 11

Was Abraham justified in Gen 12:1-4? We know from Heb 11:8-10 that he had faith.

If he was not justified, why?

Rom 4:2 says he was justified in Gen 15:6.

James 2:21 says Abraham was justified in Gen. 22:1-18.

If justification is not a process why is he justified more than once?

 

[JonNC]

Do you believe God justifies the godly or ungodly?

Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and since prior to justification, all are held by sin, death, and the devil, clearly justification is for the ungodly. He loved us while we were still in our sins.

The JDDJ says by grace through faith in Christ we are justified. I have come to the premise that what I talk about as justification, Catholics generally define as initial justification. What they call ongoing justification, I call sanctification. Without sanctification, there is no justification. While good works do not save, no one who is truly justified is without good works.

“What Augustine says is indeed true: He who has created you without yourself will not save you without yourself. Works are necessary for salvation, but they do not cause salvation; for faith alone gives life. For the sake of hypocrites it should be said that good works are necessary for salvation. Works must be done, but it does not follow from this that works save… Works save externally, that is, they testify that we are just and that in a man there is that faith which saves him internally, as Paul says: ‘With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’.” Luther

Jon

 

[loneviking]

Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and since prior to justification, all are held by sin, death, and the devil, clearly justification is for the ungodly. He loved us while we were still in our sins.

The JDDJ says by grace through faith in Christ we are justified. I have come to the premise that what I talk about as justification, Catholics generally define as initial justification. What they call ongoing justification, I call sanctification. Without sanctification, there is no justification. While good works do not save, no one who is truly justified is without good works.
Jon

Jon, you lost me. What is ‘JDDJ’…Joint Declaration on ?

For Lutherans, Justification and Sanctification are the same thing from different perspectives.

Justification is between God and you, where God justifies you and declares you innocent. The problem is that the world (your family, friends and neighbors) can’t see this. What they do see is:

Sanctification–which are the works we do because we are saved; which are seen by the world around us; and through which Christ continues His ministry to a lost and dying world. There’s a Lutheran saying ‘Saved to Serve’ that pretty much encompasses this idea.

 

[Third_Day]

Shawn38, would you please answer this question. ( for the third time)

Was Adam just "declared ’ to be a sinner by God or was he actually made a sinner when he sinned against God?