“Them He Also Justified”                    

Romans 8:30

            All who are called by the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ have been “justified freely by (God’s) grace through the redemption that is in Christ” (Rom. 3:24). To be justified is to be just as if I had never sinned. All who are justified have been absolved of all guilt, forgiven of all sin, made righteous by divine imputation, and accepted as perfectly righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ.

            IN THIS TEXT PAUL ASSERTS THAT ALL WHO BELIEVE ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST WERE JUSTIFIED BY THE DECREE OF GOD FROM ETERNITY. Notice the language used is past tense. Paul is talking about God’s eternal purpose of grace. We were justified in the mind and purpose of God at the same time we were foreknown, predestinated, called, and glorified from eternity. In exactly the same sense that Christ, as the Lamb of God, was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8), all God’s elect were justified from eternity.

            OUR JUSTIFICATION WAS ACCOMPLISHED IN TIME AND PURCHASED BY THE BLOOD ATONEMENT OF CHRIST IN HIS DEATH AS OUR SUBSTITUTE (Rom. 3:24-26). God could not save his elect without the satisfaction of his justice. He is “a just God and a Savior” (Isa. 45:21). The Lord Jesus, being the infinite God, died in the place of chosen sinners at Calvary, and thereby made an infinite, complete satisfaction to divine justice on our behalf. He paid our debt. He put away our sin. And when the debt was paid, when justice was satisfied, we were justified. He did not merely make justification a possibility. He effectually accomplished it for us. The proof that our justification was accomplished by His death is our Savior’s resurrection from the dead (Rom. 4:25). When our sin was imputed to him, he died. When justice was satisfied and sin was put away, God verified it by raising him who was made to be sin from the dead without sin! Our justification in Christ is a free, complete, perfect work of God’s grace. It is free, without cause in us (Rom. 3:24). It is complete, including both the pardon of all sin and the gift of perfect righteousness (Mic. 7:18; Acts 13:38-39). It is perfect and irreversible (Eccles. 3:14; Rom. 11:29; I Cor. 1:30.

            THIS FREE GRACE JUSTIFICATION IS RECEIVED BY FAITH (Rom. 3:28). Faith has nothing to do with the accomplishment of justification. When the Scriptures declare that we are justified by faith, the meaning is that we receive complete justification by faith in Christ who accomplished our justification.

            THE RESULT OF THIS JUSTIFICATION IS “PEACE WITH GOD” (Rom. 5:1). What a blessed word of grace! We are justified! Our sins are gone! Our debt is paid! The curse is removed! Wrath is consumed! Judgment is over! And God has imputed to us the very righteousness of Christ! Happy indeed are those who can honestly call the Son of God - JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU - THE LORD MY RIGHTEOUSNESS!

 

Don Fortner