JUSTIFICATION, JUSTIFY
Verb and noun originate in Christian Latin (the Vulgate); Lat. analogy affords some excuse for the Romanist reading of justify as make just, by which sanctification is included under justification. Neither the Heb. nor the Greek original allows of any other definition of justify than count just; it is a term of ethical relationship, not ethical quality, and signifies the footing on which one is set towards another, not the character imparted to one. The Heb. verb (abstract noun wanting) deviates from the above sense only in the late Heb. of Dan_12:3 (rendered in EV [Note: English Version.] turn
to righteousness). The Greek equivalent had a wide range of meaningdenoting (1) to set right, correct a wrong thing done; (2) to deem right, claim, approve, consent to anything; (3) to do right by any one, either in vindication or in punishment (so justify in Scottish law = execute).
The usage of the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] and NT, applying the word to persons, comes under (3) above, but only as taken in bonam partem; in other words, justification in Biblical speech imports the vindication or clearing from charge of the justified person, never his chastisement. Justification is essentially the act of a judge (whether in the official or the ethical sense), effected on just grounds and in foro (Dei, conscientiæ, or reipublic, as the case may he). It must be borne in mind that the character of Father and the office of Judge in God consist together in NT thought. We have to distinguish (1) the general use of the word as a term of moral judgment, in which there is no difference between OT and NT writers; (2) its specific Pauline use, esp. characteristic of Rom. and Galatians.
1. In common parlance, one is justified when pronounced just on trial, when cleared of blame or aspersion. So God is justified, where His character or doings have borne the appearance of injustice and have been, or might be, arraigned before the human conscience; see Job_8:3, Psa_51:4 (Rom_3:4) 97:2, Mat_11:19, Luk_7:29; Luk_7:35, also 1Ti_3:16. Similarly Gods servants may be justified against the misjudgments and wrongful accusations of the world (Psa_37:6; cf. Exo_23:7, Job_23:3-11; Job_42:7-9, Psa_7:8-10; Psa_35:19-24; Psa_43:1; Psa_97:8-12 etc.; and in the NT, Mat_13:43, Rom_2:5-7, 1Pe_2:23; cf. 1Ti_3:16, Rev_11:18). Even the wicked may be, relatively, justified by comparison with the more wicked (Jer_3:11, Eze_16:51 f.; cf. Mat_12:41 f.).
But OT thought on this subject arrived at a moral impasse, a contradiction that seemingly admitted of no escape. In the days of judgment on the nation Israel felt that she was more righteous than the heathen oppressors (Hab_1:13) and that, at a certain point, she had received of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] s hand double for all her sins (Jer_10:24, Isa_40:2); and J″ [Note: Jahweh.] s covenant pledged Him to her reinstatement (Isa_54:5-10). In this situation, towards the end of the Exile, the Second Isaiah writes, My justifier is at hand!
my lord J″ [Note: Jahweh.] will help me
who is he that counts me wicked? (Isa_50:8 f.; cf. Rom_8:31-34). For the people of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] a grand vindication is coming: more than this, J″ [Note: Jahweh.] s righteous servanteither the ideal Israel collectively, or some single representative in whom its character and sufferings are ideally embodiedis to justify many in bearing their iniquities, this vicarious office accounting for the shameful death inflicted on him (Is 53a); his meek obedience to J″ [Note: Jahweh.] s will in the endurance of humiliation and anguish will redound to the benefit of sinful humanity (cf. Isa_53:11 f. with Isa_52:13 f.). While the spiritual Israel is thus represented as perfected through sufferings and made the instrument of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] s grace towards mankind, the deepened consciousness of individual sin prompted such expressions as those of Jer_17:9, Psa_51:5; Psa_130:3; Psa_143:2 (Rom_3:23), and raised the problem of Job_25:4, How can a man be righteous with God? Mic_6:6-8 reveals with perfect clearness the way of justification by merit; Mic_7:1-6 shows how completely it was missed; and Mic_7:18-20 points to the one direction in which hope lay,the covenant grace of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] . The seed of Israel is to be justified in J″ [Note: Jahweh.] and saved with an everlasting salvation (Isa_45:17; Isa_45:22-25); the actual Israel is radically vicious and stands self-condemned (Isa_59:12 ff., Isa_64:6 f. etc.). Such is the final verdict of prophecy.
Under the legal régime dominating Judaism from the age of Ezra onwards, the principle of which was expressed by Paul in Gal_3:12 (He that doeth those things shall live in them), this problem took another and most acute form. The personal favour of God, and the attainment by Israel of the Messianic salvation for herself and the world, were staked on the exact fulfilment of the Mosaic Law, and circumcision was accepted as the seal, stamped upon the body of every male Jew, of the covenant based on this understanding (see Gal_5:3). Rom_7:7-25 shows how utterly this theory had failed for the individual, and Rom_9:30 to Rom_10:3 asserts its national failure.
2. St. Pauls doctrine of Justification is explained negatively by his recoil from the Judaism just described. In the cross of Christ there had been revealed to him, after his abortive struggles, Gods way of justifying men (Rom_7:24; Rom_7:8; Rom_7:4). This was in reality the old way, trodden by Abraham (Rom_4:1-25), witnessed to by the law and the prophetsby the Mosaic sacrifices and the Isaianic promises. Paul takes up again the threads that dropped from the hands of the later Isaiah. He sees in Jesus Christ and him crucified the mysterious figure of Is 53an identification already made by John the Baptist and by the Lord Himself; cf. Rom_5:18-21 with Isa_53:11. Upon this view the death of the Messiah on Calvary, which so terribly affronted Saul the Pharisee, is perfectly explained; the scandal of the cross is changed to glory (1Co_1:23-31, Gal_2:20 f., Gen_3:13; Gen_6:14, 2Co_5:21). The sacrifice for sin made in the death of Jesus vindicates and reinstates mankind before God. Justification is, in Pauline language, synonymous with reconciliation (atonement)see Rom_3:23 ff; Rom_5:11; Rom_5:15-21, esp. 2Co_5:19, where God is said to be reconciling the world to himself in not imputing to them their trespasses; the same act which is a reconciliation as it concerns the disposition and attitude of the parties affected, is a justification as it concerns their ethical footing, their relations in the order of moral law. The ground of the Christian justification lies in the grace, concurrent with the righteousness, of God the Father, which offers a pardon wholly gratuitous as regards the offenders deserts (Rom_3:23 f., Rom_4:4 f., Rom_5:6; Rom_5:8; Rom_5:21; Rom_6:23 etc., Heb_2:9). The means is the vicarious expiatory death of Jesus Christ, ordained by God for this very end (Rom_3:24 f., Rom_4:25; Rom_5:6; Rom_5:9, 2Co_5:14; 2Co_5:18; cf. Mat_20:28; Mat_26:28, Heb_9:12; Heb_9:23; Heb_10:18, 1Pe_2:24; 1Pe_3:18, 1Jn_1:7; 1Jn_4:10; 1Jn_4:14, Rev_1:5 etc.). The sole condition is faith, with baptism for its outward sign, repentance being of course implicit in both (Rom_6:3 f., Gal_3:26 f.; Rom_6:2; Rom_6:21, 1Co_6:11, Act_20:21; Act_22:16; Act_26:18 etc.); i.e. the trustful acceptance by the sin-convicted man of Gods grace meeting him in Christ (Rom_4:25; Rom_5:1, Gal_2:20 f. etc.); the clause through faith in Jesus Christ of Rom_3:22 is the subjective counterpart (man meeting God) of the objective expression through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (God meeting man) in Rom_3:24.
There underlies this whole doctrine the assumption of the solidarity of mankind with Jesus Christ: He did not interfere from the outside, to make Himself a substitute for manthe ethical objection to Paullnism based on this presumption is irrelevantbut offered himself unblemished to God from within humanity, being the one man willing and able to perform the one justificatory act, to render the obedience which availed for all men unto a life-giving justification (Rom_5:15; Rom_5:21). Hence Paul is careful to refer the justification of mankind to the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, in whom the race recognizes its highest self, side by side with the grace of God conveyed by Him and lodged in Him, the Son of God (Rom_5:15). All great boons are won and achievements realized by individual leaders, captains of salvation for their fellows. Moreover, the propitiatory offering was not the mere negative satisfaction of repentance, a vicarious apology on Christs part for the rest of us; it was rendered by His positive obedience unto death, yea the death of the cross, by His meek acceptance of the penalties of transgression falling on Him the undeserving, by His voluntary submission to the law that binds death to sin and that numbered Him with the transgressors, since He had cast in His lot with them (Isa_53:12, Luk_22:37; cf. Gal_4:5, Rom_8:2-4); this is what was meant by saying that He became sinbecame a cursefor us, that we might become a righteousness of God in him (2Co_5:21, Gal_3:13). Our Representative was delivered up to the execution of Calvary because of our trespasses; He was raised from the dead, released from the prison-house, because of our justification effected by His sacrifice (Rom_4:25)or, as the latter clause is often understood, raised to effect our individual justification. Fundamentally then, justification is the sentence of acquittal passed by God upon the race of mankind in accepting Christs expiation made on its behalf, the reinstatement of the world in the Divine grace which embraces all men in its scope (Rom_5:18): experimentally, it takes effect in those who hear the good news and believe; by these the universal amnesty is personally enjoyed (Rom_1:17; Rom_3:22; Rom_5:1, 1Co_6:11 etc.).
Justification is realized in (a) the forgiveness of sins, and (b) adoption into the family of God, whereof the Spirit of Gods Son, poured into the heart, is the witness and seal (Rom_8:15 f., 2Co_1:22, Gal_4:6, Eph_1:13 f., That personal justification, according to St. Pauls idea, embraces sonship along with pardon is evident from the comparison of Gal_3:13 f. and Gen_4:5 with 2Co_5:19-21 and Eph_1:7 : on the one hand adoption and the promise of the Spirit, on the other hand forgiveness or the non-imputation of trespasses, are immediately derived from redemption in Christs blood and the reconciling of the world to God; they are alike conditioned upon faith in Jesus. The two are the negative and positive parts of mans restoration to right relationship with God.
St. James teaching on Justification in Jam_2:14-26 of his Ep., is concerned only with its conditionwith the nature of justifying faith. He insists that this is a practical faith such as shows itself alive and genuine by its works, and not the theroetical belief in God which a demon may have as truly as a saint. On this point Paul and James were in substance agreed (see 1Th_1:3, 2Th_1:11, Gal_5:6); the works of faith which James demands, and the works of the law which Paul rejects, are quite different things. The opposition between the two writers is at the bottom merely verbal, and was probably unconscious on the part of both.
G. G. Findlay.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909