Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Romans 5:1 (NASB)

It is one thing to be forgiven for an offense and quite another to be completely exonerated in court and declared not guilty! When we are forgiven, it means we admit that we have done something wrong to another person, concerning which we have incurred some sort of debt to them.

Forgiveness does not erase the wrong; it simply releases us from the debt. Justification, however, erases the record of the wrong altogether, as if it never happened.

Justification is the formal declaration of our righteous standing with God in the court of heaven. What Jesus did on the cross delivered us from guilt and condemnation through his becoming our substitute. God’s justice demanded that we pay back our debt incurred by our sin by dying a criminal’s death.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NLT)

Jesus, who never sinned, agreed to die in our place as our substitute, taking upon himself our sin, our guilt, and our debt. Because he substituted for us and paid off our debt, we were forgiven. In other words, toward God we became debt free, but the record of our offense still existed. Forgiveness leaves us being wrongdoers for whom someone else has paid the debt.

Justification, however, removes the record of our wrongdoing. Perhaps the closest parallel in our legal system is expungement, the process by which a record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from state or federal record.

An expungement order directs the court to treat the criminal conviction as if it had never occurred, essentially removing it from a defendant’s criminal record as well as, ideally, the public record.

When Jesus rose again, Father God declared that his atoning death was enough to erase the guilt and condemnation associated with our sin.

The reason this could be done without violating Father God’s own righteousness and justice is because we are now identified with our Lord Jesus. Instead of being defined as a “sinner”, we are now the righteousness of God because we are “in” Christ, and he is “in” us. This means that we are now partakers of who Christ is and all the benefits of what he accomplished through his death and resurrection.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5:21 (NASB) 

We are now partakers of God’s own righteousness, a perfect righteousness without fault or blemish!

It is God who has made you part of Christ Jesus. And Christ has become for us wisdom from God. He is the reason we are right with God and pure enough to be in his presence. Christ is the one who set us free from sin. 1 Corinthians 1:30 (ETRV)

Some have said that to be justified is to be “just as if I’d” never sinned. This is a memorable way to define justification, but it is inadequate. Such a definition of justification returns us to a state of moral innocence, the condition that Adam and Eve enjoyed initially in the garden. Justification goes much further by giving us the complete and perfect righteousness of the Son of God, who was obedient to his Father unto death.

When we are justified, we receive Christ’s righteousness deposited into our spiritual bank account.

It is as if we had already lived a perfect life, died as a martyr, and already stand before the Father completely vindicated and faultless! In fact, that is our actual condition positionally in Christ.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. Ephesians 1:4 (NLT)

The only way anyone of us can be without fault is because we are one with the Righteous One. There is no righteousness available outside of Christ’s. God is not dispensing little bags of righteousness based on our performance.

We either become righteous because we are in Christ, or we are outside of his righteousness altogether.

A thinking person will realize at this point that justification is an overwhelmingly amazing gift from God.

Imagine that while we are running in a race, it is announced that we have already finished our race and won. What kind of encouragement would that be? I imagine we would gain a new spring in our step! This is what has happened to us believers! We who are still on planet earth are in a race (Hebrews 12:1), and we have won through Christ!

No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. Romans 8:37 (NLT) 

In God’s eyes the race is already finished.

and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. Romans 8:30 (NASB) 

All of the verbs in the above verse are in the aorist past tense, which means the action has been completed once for all, never to be repeated. This means God regards us as having been justified and even glorified in His sight. He sees the end from the beginning. (Isaiah 46:10) He knows the outcome since He is sovereign and all-knowing.

Father knows you have already finished the race in Christ and have been declared a winner because Christ already won!

Even though we have already won our race, we must keep running. This is where our faith comes into view. Faith includes the following attributes – trust, allegiance, and steadfastness. The Bible says it is a gift from God, like everything else necessary for our existence. The idea is that the God who saved us by dying on the cross when we were still his enemies, will continue to “keep” us by and through faith now that we are his friends.

And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10  For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11  So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God. Romans 5:9-11 (NLT)

As we, with God’s help, steadfastly continue in a trust and allegiance relationship with Christ (faith), God’s grace will keep us.

Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. 23  But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it. Colossians 1:22-23 (NLT) 

This is what it means to be justified. We have been given another person’s, Christ’s, righteous standing before God – a perfect standing resulting from a completed life of absolute faithfulness to God. We are no longer under the Law or any performance-based system in which we must earn or maintain our standing before God. Our righteousness is no longer in question now that we have placed our confidence in Christ.

Everyone who believes in him is freed from all guilt and declared right with God—something the Jewish law could never do. Acts 13:39 (NLT) 

So, if we have put our faith and allegiance in Christ, we have passed from death to life (John 5:24). The next time we are tempted to get down on ourselves because of a recent sin or failure, we must remember that we stand before God clothed in Christ’s perfect righteousness. Therefore, we can come boldly before our Father’s glorious throne to receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. If we confess our faults and sins to our loving Father, he will let us experience the blessing of His mercy and forgiveness once again. We should never doubt our right standing with Him.

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it. Hebrews 4:16 (NLT) 

Questions for Further Study and Discussion

• Explain how justification is different from forgiveness.
• Why did Jesus have to pay the penalty for our sin?
• How did Jesus’ resurrection prove his vindication (righteousness) before God?
• Can you explain the difference between moral innocence and justification.
• Does it make sense to you that we are in a race that we have already won?
• Why can we always boldly come into Father’s presence to receive grace and mercy, even when we have recently failed?