So much material exists in the Bible regarding justification that one lesson can only introduce the concept. Strong bonds exist between "righteousness," "being just," and "being justified in God's sight." God's act of justifying us begins with his own nature.
Jesus referred to God as "Righteous Father" (John 17:25). Paul said Jesus died to enable God to be just as He justified. Jesus' death permitted God to be true to His righteous nature (Romans 3:26). Paul also referred to God as the "Righteous Judge" (2 Timothy 4:8). John declared to Christians if they confessed their sins to God, He in His faithfulness and righteousness would cleanse them from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). Revelation 16:5 refers to the Holy One as being righteous.
God is just. He is fair. He does what is right. Even when providing people forgiveness for their sins, God is just. He can justify because He acted justly. Even when He judges, he is just, fair. His judgments are consistent with what is right. The Christian depends on God's promises. When a Christian through confession [to God] brings his or her failures before God, He is faithful [He keeps His promise to forgive]. He is righteous or just when He forgives. The combination of God's faithfulness [promise keeping] and righteousness [being just or fair] guarantees a penitent Christian he or she is cleansed of all unrighteousness.
The problem: no person is just before God. How can a just God Who is repulsed by evil associate with any human? How can the Just One enter a relationship with unjust [evil] people? The solution: Jesus' death enabled the just God to enter a relationship with people [people are incapable of being just]. Through Jesus' death God paid the ransom price to release people from their slavery to sin. Through Jesus' death God appeased divine wrath, and that enabled God to be merciful. The merciful God who paid the price to release us from evil forgives us. His forgiveness destroys our sinfulness.
We understand we are just before God when we arise from our immersion into Christ. Yet, no Christian is sinless. How can God continue to see us as sinless when we all are guilty of evil?
This is the essential understanding: we are just before God because God uses Jesus' death to justify us. We do not and cannot justify ourselves before God. No human act can justify us before the just God. The act of divine forgiveness is God's act of making us righteous by justifying us in Jesus' blood. Even in forgiving us, our merciful God is just.
This is not a hard concept to see, but it is a hard concept to trust. Americans are independent people who despise being in anyone's debt. We are committed to the "pulled myself up by my own boot straps" philosophy of self-sufficiency. If someone tells us how indebted we are to another's helpfulness and kindness, inwardly we feel compelled to "set the record straight" by emphasizing what we did. Americans are convinced that no one gets something for nothing. In fact, we feel very uncomfortable with the idea of receiving kindness we do not deserve. Religiously, we too often associate obedience with "deserving" God's mercy and kindness.
The basic issue is this: can any human make himself or herself righteous? The clear Bible answer is "no"! God makes us righteous, but we cannot make ourselves righteous. God makes us righteous through the act of justification. God's mercy, not human deservedness, makes us righteous.
Long before Paul's conversion to Christ he was a devoutly religious Jew (Acts 22:3; 26:4,5). He was perhaps the most promising student of Judaism in his generation (Galatians 1:14). He was committed to making himself righteous by "doing all the right things and observing all the right traditions" (Philippians 3:4-6). He was absolutely convinced he could make himself righteous before God by his human efforts. Then he met the resurrected Jesus Christ and was confronted with the ignorance of his past commitment and determination (1 Timothy 1:12-16).
Scripture has no clearer picture of "before understanding Jesus Christ" and "after understanding Jesus Christ" than is presented by Paul in Philippians 3:7-11. Before he understood God's accomplishments in Jesus Christ, Paul was convinced he could make himself righteous through human effort. If he did enough of the "right things" God would view him as "righteous." Then he understood what God did in Jesus Christ. Those matters that he regarded as invaluable steps to making himself righteous became trash. He sacrificed all of them for the privilege of knowing, gaining, and being found in Christ.
Why? He did not want a righteousness dependent on his attempts to keep the Law. He wanted the righteousness God provides when a person places confidence in God's accomplishments in Christ. The end result of the righteousness God provides through faith in Christ is (1) knowledge of Christ, (2) the power of resurrection [in this life], (3) fellowship with Christ's sufferings, (4) conformity to Christ's death, (5) and eternal resurrection (Philippians 3:9-11).
Paul wanted the justification God provides the Christian through faith in Christ. He did not want the inferior, inadequate human attempt to be justified by human efforts.
The justification God provides in Christ allows God to look at us differently. Consider Galatians 3:23-29. What God accomplished in Jesus allows Him to justify us by faith. Unjust people cannot be just, but they can trust God's accomplishments in Jesus. It is confidence in what God did in Jesus Christ that allows us to be God's children. God does something to us at the moment we express our confidence in Jesus by being immersed into Christ. God is responsible for what occurs. We are not. When we are immersed into Christ, God clothes us in Christ.
When Jesus died on the cross, God looked at him and saw our wickedness. Jesus' body was clothed in our sins as he died (1 Peter 2:24). God made Jesus to be sin when he died (2 Corinthians 5:20,21). Because God made Jesus to be sin by placing our sins on his body, God justly can make us righteous. In the same manner God placed our sins on Jesus when he died, God places Jesus' righteousness on us when we are immersed into Christ. Just as God looked at the dying Jesus and saw sin, God looks at the person in Christ and sees righteousness. God does not see righteousness when He looks at us because we have no evil in us. He looks at the person in Christ and sees righteousness because he or she is clothed in Christ.
That is the essence of justification. When God looks at the person in Christ, it is as though the person is not and never has been guilty of anything evil. As someone said of the Christian, "It is just as if I never sinned."
Link to Teacher's Guide
Lesson 5