-27 Chapter 27. Of Justification.

1-27 Chapter 27. Of Justification.

1. Communion of the blessings flowing from Union with Christ, is that by which the faithful are made partakers of all those things they have need of to live well and blessedly with God. Ephesians 1:3, He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings. Romans 8:32, He who did not spare his own son, etc. How shall he not freely with him give us all things also?
2. This communion therefore brings a translation and change of condition to believers, from the state of sin and death, to the state of righteousness and eternal life. 1 John 3:14, We know that we are translated from death to life.422
3. This change of state is twofold: relative, and absolute or real.
4. A RELATIVE change of state is that which consists in God’s imputation. Romans 4:5, And he that does not work, but believes in him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is imputed to him for righteousness. 2 Corinthians 5:19, God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself, not imputing to them their offenses.
5. Hence JUSTIFICATION allows for no degrees of it, properly so-called, but it is altogether and at once perfect in one act only; although in respect to its manifestation, sense, and effects, it has different degrees. This pertains to justification and adoption.
6. Justification is a gracious sentence of God, whereby for Christ’s sake, apprehended by Faith, God absolves the believer from sin and death, and accounts him righteous unto life. Romans 3:22, The righteousness of God by Faith of Jesus Christ in all, and upon all that believe; Romans 3:24, As those who are freely justified by his grace through the redemption made by Jesus Christ.
7. Justification is the pronouncing of a sentence, as the use of the word declares. In the Holy Scriptures, it does not set forth a physical or real change, but that judicial or moral change which consists in pronouncing sentence, and in [restoring] reputation. Proverbs 17:15, He that justifies the wicked. Romans 8:33, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s Elect? It is God that justifies.
8. Therefore Thomas [Aquinas] and his followers foully err, who would make justification a physical motion,423 as it were, by a real transmutation from a state of unrighteousness to a state of righteousness — so as to move from the term which is sin, to the term which is inherent righteousness; and this motion is [claimed to be] partly a remission of sin, and partly the infusion of righteousness. 424
9. This sentence was, 1. As it were, conceived in the mind of God by a decree of justifying. Galatians 3:8, The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by Faith. 2. It was pronounced in Christ our Head, now rising from the dead. 2 Corinthians 5:19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their sins to them. 3. It is virtually pronounced upon that first relation which arises from begotten Faith. Romans 8:1, There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. 4. It is expressly pronounced by the Spirit of God witnessing to our spirits our reconciliation with God. Romans 5:5, The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that is given to us. In this testimony of the Spirit, justification itself does not properly consist of an actual perceiving of what was granted before as it were, by a reflected act of Faith.425
10. It is a gracious sentence, because it is not properly given by the Justice of God, but by his grace. Romans 3:24, Freely by his grace. For by the same grace whereby he called Christ to the office of Mediator, and drew the elect to Union with Christ, God accounts those already drawn and believing, to be just (justified) by that Union.
11. Justification is for Christ’s sake. 2 Corinthians 5:21, That we may be made the righteousness of God in him; for the obedience of Christ is that righteousness in respect to which the grace of God justifies us; no differently than the disobedience of Adam was that offense in respect to which the justice of God condemned us, Romans 5:18.426
12. Therefore the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers in justification. Php_3:9, That I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the Law, but that which is by Faith of Christ, the righteousness of God through Faith.
13. But because this righteousness is ordained by God to that end, and by his grace it is approved and confirmed so that sinners can stand before him through this righteousness, it is therefore called the righteousness of God, Romans 10:3.427
14. But this justification is for Christ, not absolutely considered,428 in which sense Christ is also the cause of our vocation.429 Rather, this justification is for Christ, as apprehended by our Faith, which follows our Calling as an effect of it; and his righteousness being apprehended by Faith, justification follows. This is also why Righteousness is said to be “of Faith,” Romans 9:30; Romans 10:6; and Justification is said to be “through Faith,” Romans 3:28.430
15. This justifying Faith431 is not that general Faith by which (in the understanding) we yield assent to the truth revealed in the Holy Scriptures; for that does not properly belong to those who are justified, nor does it produce those effects which everywhere in Scripture are given to justifying Faith.
16. Nor is it (properly speaking) that special confidence whereby we apprehend remission of sins, and justification itself — for justifying faith goes before justification itself, as the cause goes before the effect. But Faith apprehending justification necessarily presupposes and follows justification, as an act follows the object about which Faith is exercised.
17. Therefore, that Faith is properly called justifying Faith, by which we rely upon Christ for remission of sins and for salvation. For Christ is the adequate 432 object of Faith, as Faith justifies. And Faith does not justify other than as it apprehends that righteousness by which we are justified. But that righteousness is not in the truth of some phrase to which we yield assent, but in Christ alone, who is made sin for us, that we might be righteousness in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
18. From this come those Sermons so often repeated in the New Testament, which show that justification is to be sought in Christ alone: John 1:12; John 3:15-16; John 6:40; John 6:47; John 14:1; John 14:6; Romans 4:5; Romans 3:26; Acts 10:43; Acts 26:18; Galatians 3:26.433
19. This justifying Faith of its own nature produces and has joined with it, a special and certain persuasion of the grace and mercy of God in Christ. For this reason, justifying Faith is often not wrongly described by the orthodox using “persuasion,” especially when they oppose that general Faith to which the Papists ascribe all things. But 1. This persuasion, as touching the sense of it, is not always present. For it may and often does come to pass, either through weakness of judgment or through various temptations and troubles of mind, that the one who truly believes, and is justified by Faith before God, may still think for a time (according to what he feels) that he neither believes nor is reconciled to God. 2. There are different degrees of this persuasion, so that all believers do not have entirely the same assurance of the grace and favour of God; nor do the same believers have that same assurance at all times; yet they cannot properly affirm this persuasion of justifying Faith, without a great deal of detriment to that consolation and peace which Christ has left to believers.434
20. Justification absolves us from sin and death, not by immediately taking away the blame, or the stain, or all the effects sin; but by taking away the guilt and the obligation to undergo eternal death. Romans 8:1; Romans 8:33-34, There is no condemnation; who shall lay anything to their charge? Who shall condemn?
21. Nor yet does Justification so take away the guilt, that it takes away the punishment which the sin deserves, and which (the sin itself remaining) can in no way be taken away; but it so takes away the guilt, that it takes away the revenging pursuit of sin’s desert,435 or its deadly effects.
22. This absolution from sins is called (in a different respect, but in the same sense) in Holy Scriptures, REMISSION, REDEMPTION, and RECONCILIATION, Ephesians 1:6-7.436 For just as the state of sin is considered bondage, or as a certain spiritual captivity in respect to the guilt of it, so justification is called Redemption; and just as the state of sin is considered subjection to punishment, so justification is called Remission of sins, and also passing by, blotting out, disburdening, taking away, casting away, removing, and casting them behind the back, Romans 4:7; Colossians 2:14; Micah 7:18; Isaiah 43:25; Isaiah 38:17; Psalms 32:1-2. And as the same state is considered a certain enmity against God, so justification is called Reconciliation, Romans 5:10; and as it is a certain “winking” at sin, Leviticus 20:4,437 so justification is called a COVERING of sin, Psalms 32:1-2.
23. But not only are the past sins of justified persons remitted, but also in some way those that are to come. Numbers 23:21,438 He sees no iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel, because justification has left no room for condemnation. John 5:24,439 He that believes has eternal life, and shall not come into condemnation; and it certainly and immediately adjudges one to eternal life. It also makes all that remission which was obtained for us in Christ, to be actually ours. Nor can past and present sins be altogether and fully remitted, unless sins to come are in some way remitted also.
24. But there is this difference: that past sins are remitted by a formal application, but sins to come are remitted only virtually; past sins are remitted in themselves, but sins to come are remitted in the subject or person who is sinning.
25. Yet those who are justified daily desire the forgiveness of sins, 1. Because the continuance of this grace is necessary to them. 2. So that the sense and manifestation of it may be more and more perceived, as individual sins required. 3. So that the execution of that sentence which is pronounced in justification, might be matured and furthered.
26. Besides the FORGIVENESS OF SINS, there is also required an IMPUTATION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, Romans 5:18-19; Revelation 19:8; Romans 8:3-4. 440 This is because there may be a total absence of sin, where notwithstanding, there is not that righteousness which must come in place of justification.441
27. But this righteousness is not to be severally sought in the purity of the nature, birth, and life of Christ; but it arises out of all the obedience of Christ, together with remission of sins: just as the same disobedience of Adam has both robbed us of original righteousness, and also made us subject to the guilt of condemnation.