- When Does God Justify a Sinner

3. When Does God Justify a Sinner – Does it Matter Anyway?

Is this question necessary? Does it really matter at all whether it is your faith, your act of believing, that secured your justification before God, i.e., that your faith secured your right standing before God; or whether your faith is a fruit and effect of your justification by God’s free grace, i.e., you believe because you have been freely justified by God? Does it matter? Does it make any difference? Do we need to ‘split hairs’ (that’s what some say I am doing!) whether faith precedes justification, or faith follows justification? Does it matter whether faith secures your justification, or faith evidences your justification by God’s free grace? Which is in accord to grace? Which is God honouring? Which is the truth revealed in the Scriptures? It does matter, and it matters a great deal, to me anyway.

Knowing that God justified us when ungodly and when we were still enemies and dead in sin is a most wonderful thing. It is good news indeed. It is grace and pure grace. That God would do such a thing for us poor hell-deserving sinners when we were in such a helpless state declares to us that our justification before God is not because of our faith in Him. In such a state of ungodliness and enmity against God, the act faith was impossible. If we must believe to be justified by God, when we are spiritually dead, then that is not good news. The good news is that the just shall live by faith, i.e., God has justified His people at effectual calling so that they may live by faith in Christ Jesus. The good news is that whoever believes has eternal life. God has bestowed eternal life at effectual calling so that we may believe. Eternal life is bestowed in order “that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3).

Please note the plain truth declared in this statement. “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” The eternal life is the cause. The knowing is the effect of eternal life. It is NOT ‘knowing that they might have eternal life.’ When faith is the fruit of God’s act of justification, then our faith in Him is the evidence of God’s gracious work of justifying us. Faith as the fruit and effect of God’s free grace work of justifying us while ungodly and in enmity against Him truly reflects salvation by grace alone. Salvation, then, is indeed by grace in Christ alone and brought to light through faith in Christ alone.

If your justification before God is by your faith, then everything becomes so uncertain. Any assurance of salvation becomes difficult. Someone would object and say, but faith is the gift of God. Faith is indeed a saving grace (Does God work spiritual graces in those who are still under condemnation, i.e., whom He has not first justified? Does the Supreme Judge grant a condemned criminal freedom before He pronounced him not guilty but righteous? Or does God give gifts to His adopted children so that they may believe? Consider these questions.) But it is you alone who must exercise that faith. You and you alone must do the believing. If so, these disturbing questions will unnerve you.

Did you exercise the right kind of faith to secure your justification? Did you exercise enough of the right faith to secure your justification? Is God pleased with your kind of faith for Him to justify you? Did your faith meet His standard? Since faith comes by hearing, did the pastor preach well and correct enough to enable you to exercise enough of the right faith to secure your justification before God? Did I hear and understand enough of the truth to enable me to exercise the right faith to secure my justification, my acceptance with God? If I have secured my justification with enough of the right kind of faith, how much faith must I have in order to maintain my state of justification before God? If I secured my justification by my faith, is there a possibility that I may lose my justification and revert back to my condemned state by my subsequent faithlessness? What if I become faithless, as God’s children are so apt to do sometimes, will I be de-justified? Did the foolish Galatians become de-justified? What frightening questions!

Does it matter? Tremendously. Your faith in the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, even if it is little like a mustard seed, is the sure evidence of the perfect and immutable act of God in justifying you. The least faith in the blessed Lord Jesus Christ is proof of a justified state because faith is a product of justification. Oh what comfort! What assurance of salvation! O what grace to humble us to the dust that our acceptance with God is whole by His pure grace and mercy, and not because of our faith! It is indeed that the just shall live by faith – the justified ones shall believe. Truth is the fertile ground upon which true assurance thrives. I hope you are convinced that it does matter, and give attention to consider this subject carefully, to the honour and glory of God.

What is the relationship between God’s act of grace in justifying (i.e. declaring and accepting a guilty person as righteous by pardoning all his sins, and by imputing to him Christ's active obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in His death for their whole and sole righteousness) a guilty sinner, and the sinner’s act of faith in receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness? How are justification (the act of God) and faith (the act of man) logically and chronologically related? How is faith related to justification as ‘the alone instrument of justification’?

From the many quotations, it is obvious that brethren of the ‘standard reformed position’ believe that a believer’s faith logically and chronologically precedes his justification before God, i.e., the sinner’s act of faith in receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness logically precedes God’s judicial act of declaring and accepting a guilty person as righteous by pardoning all his sins, and by imputing to him Christ’s active obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in His death for their whole and sole righteousness. They believe ‘faith is the alone instrument of justification’ means that ‘faith is the alone instrument whereby a person is put in right standing before God,’ i.e., faith is the alone instrument to secure justification. But what do the Scriptures say? Is this view in conformity with the biblical teachings as summarized by our Particular Baptists forebears in the 1689 CoF?