JUSTIFICATION

In order to our having peace with God as once guilty sinners, we need to be built up in His grace in justifying us. God justifies the sinner from his sins, God justifies the ungodly; and He does so on the ground of the sinner’s belief of His word. By this truth our hearts are made strong in God, and we are taken out of the misery of trying to get rid of our sins in order to merit God’s favor, and out of the hopelessness of trying to justify ourselves by our works. Our good works do not come into account until after our justification. All that we may do, before we believe, is absolutely worthless, for until we believe, we are in the relation only of the guilty to our Judge; we are justified by God on our faith.
God has, in His grace, laid down in His word the terms upon which He justifies the ungodly.
ON GOD’S SIDE
God has set forth Jesus Christ “a Mercy Seat, through faith in His blood...to declare…His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of Him who believeth in Jesus.”
(See Rom. 3:25, 26).| ON MAN’S SIDE.
A man’s faith is counted to him by God for righteousness and God counts the righteousness “to him that worketh not but believeth on Him [God] who justifieth the ungodly.
(See Rom. 4:5).
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The Lord Jesus was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification, and God’s righteousness is shown by the death His Son suffered for sinners, by the judgment He bore, and the wrath He endured on account of sin; and it is shown also by God raising up from among the dead the Substitute for sinners, after He had satisfied every claim of divine righteousness in respect of sin by His death.
On man’s side there is nothing to be done by the guilty sinner in the way of righteousness. All that he can do is to cast himself in his guilt upon the work which Jesus has accomplished; and all who trust God and believe in Jesus, by whom the righteousness of God has been magnified, are justified by God on the ground of what has been done, and done forever, by Christ.
When a sinner believes God, God justifies that sinner, and he is absolutely justified. “By Him all that believe are justified from all things” (Acts 13:39); all persons who believe, whoever they may be, are justified by God from all things, whatever these may be. On our side it is not a question of much faith, or little faith, but of faith in God. We must have, each one of us, real dealing with God for ourselves about our sins, and about Christ who died for us. Historic faith is not saving faith: “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” (Rom. 10:10).
Obviously everyman’s faith is his own faith. We cannot believe God for one another; faith is a matter entirely between ourselves and our God. And on God’s side, when He sees in us this faith, He Himself justifies us, and as God is the Justifier, the justification is absolute, for it is divine. No creature, neither man nor devil, can interfere in respect of this great work of God for us. It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth? (Rom. 8:33, 34)
Let us emphasize the fact that God justifies the believer absolutely, and that the believer is cleared from every charge that could be laid against him, the measure of the clearance being the perfection of Christ’s work on the cross in putting away sins, and the glory of God the Father in raising Him up from the dead.
Now, we say, as we are built up in this grace of God in justifying us, we have peace with God. We have nothing to fear from God; we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Rom. 5:2-11).