Justification Primer
QUESTION
My friends believe in eternal justification, and I’m still only of the opinion that we are justified at the cross. What say you? Can you help me understand eternal justification and possibly prove/show it in the Bible for me?
ANSWER
There are aspects of justification that can be properly ascribed to eternity and aspects that can be ascribed to the cross. To say that “eternal justification is all eternal and not at the cross” is false dichotomy just as much as saying, “eternal justification is at the cross and not from eternity” is. These statement are too coarse to accommodate the bible’s full testimony on justification. Those who choose one or the other and declare “the matter is settled” are being short-sighted in their approach to bible’s testimony. Nevertheless, this approach is incredibly appealing and quite popular. It is better to dive deeper and understand the nuances of justification addressed by the scriptures that address them and to interpret those scriptures in their proper context. In my experience, some Christians get pretty zealous about the “Justification Team” they are on (Eternity, Cross, Belief, Works, etc.) and often become unfathomably hostile towards those in other camps. The resulting debates can become quite ugly and uncharitable. To avoid that, I believe there’s a better understanding of justification available to God’s people, provided we abandon our tendency toward team-pride, redouble our examination of the scriptural evidence, and embrace the various nuances involved in how scripture speaks of justification.
RIGHTLY DIVIDING JUSTIFICATION
Justification is a deep topic and it takes some time develop it fully. By way of introduction, I’ll attempt to outline the subject with a brief statement regarding several aspects of justification in the word of God, showing how they are distinct from one another, and showing scriptural evidence for them. They are ALL true but they must be understood within their intended context. That means we cannot say, “Justification is one of these things and not the others.” They do not contradict each other. They demonstrate different aspects of how the term justification is used in the scriptures.
JUSTIFICATION FROM ETERNITY (THE PLAN) – God had a plan to save a chosen people before he ever created this earth and that plan cannot be thwarted. “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:4-6)
JUSTIFICATION AT CALVARY (THE PAYMENT) – God’s plan required payment of the sin debt of these people and that was done by Christ on the cross. This is the actual transaction whereby the sin debt of God’s people was paid. “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:9-10)
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH (THE EXPERIENCE) – When God’s people hear and believe the promise of God that shall set all things right between man and Himself, they embrace the reality of their justified state in their personal experience. This does not make justification actual. Justification is a preexisting state that is declared in the gospel. It does, however, make justification a cognitive reality in the experience of those who hear, understand, and believe the gospel. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1)
JUSTIFICATION BY WORKS (THE EVIDENCE) – When God’s people live in accordance with their beliefs, producing good works, it demonstrates their justified state before others. This also does nothing to make justification actual. It simply gives evidence of one’s justified state before a watching world. “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” (James 2:18-24)
All of those statements are true of biblical justification. To point to one of these and say, “The bible says justification occurred HERE” oversimplifies the bible’s testimony. It is an example of wrong division in that it amplifies the testimony of some scriptures while ignoring the testimony of others. Failure to recognize ALL of the facets of justification in the scriptures results ins shoe-horning everything into a single category, doing violence to the language and intent of several scriptures in the process.
SEDUCTIVE OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF A COMPLEX TOPIC
I’ll take a moment to point out that this approach to the word of God is seductive to many Christians. That is in no small part because it promotes a simplified view of justification. It has been well said that “men’s minds are lazier than their bodies.” If that is true, a trip to Walmart reveals that men are more lazy-minded than we realize. As such, they are inclined to embrace simplifications, even when they are wrong. These simple assertions regarding justification require that we either ignore some scriptures or do violence to them to make them “reconcile.” The fact of the matter is that not all matters of doctrine are simple. Peter plainly states this with respect to Paul’s writings, “As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.” (II Peter 3:16) That is an important observation. The bible contains “some things hard to be understood" and one of those things is the topic of justification. Peter’s affirmation of “hard things” in scripture means that if one’s theology is composed entirely of “easy things” then at least some things we believe are wrong. That statement is worthy of a great deal more consideration by most Christians in our time. A lot of false doctrine is promoted using an approach that I call “Plain Meaningism” which simplifies the bible’s teaching at the expense of accuracy and non-contradiction. It is the very opposite of right division (II Timothy 2:15). But I digress…
IN SUMMARY
Returning to the matter of justification - The first two above are the plan and the payment. Both are requirements of our justification before the throne of divine judgment. The latter two are evidences of one’s justification. The first two are conditions of justification, the latter two are provisions of justification. I won’t belabor the point beyond those distinctions, as there is much more that could be said, but will reiterate that justification requires right division of the bible’s FULL testimony. I believe these four classifications are helpful in preventing contradictions between the verses cited. Moreover, it is important to realize that the exaltation of a single testimony of justification to the exclusion of numerous other testimonies of justification is not right division; it’s just sloppy theology.
- Elder Daniel Samons
FOLLOW UP QUESTION
Can you give me a definition of eternal justification?
ANSWER
A brief definition is found, in brief, in the first bullet point above:
“JUSTIFICATION FROM ETERNITY (THE PLAN) – God had a plan to save a chosen people before he ever created this earth and that plan cannot be thwarted."
Perhaps stating that another way would be helpful. When I am speaking of JUSTIFICATION FROM ETERNITY (or ETERNAL JUSTIFICATION), I am speaking of the PLAN that existed in mind and purpose of God from before creation. God had the whole plan to redeem his people in mind before any of the events involved in that plan ever came to pass (Ephesians 1:4-6). God's plan cannot be thwarted, "For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." (Malachi 3:6) As a result we can be absolutely certain that if God purposed to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), that he shall bring that plan to fruition, because, "none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doesth thou?" (Daniel 4:35)
However, while it is true that God had this certain plan, we must avoid the crass error that implies that there is no need for the implementation of that plan. The certainty of God's plan does not undermine the need for the plan to come to pass, rather, it ensures that it SHALL come to pass. This is where I believe some in the ETERNAL JUSTIFICATION ONLY camp err. They exalt the certainty of the plan seemingly to the exclusion of the necessity of the death of Christ, when instead they should assert that the certainly of the plan ensures the certainty of the atonement of Christ.
I believe the best way to handle this is to recognize that ETERNAL JUSTIFICATION is speaking of the plan that existed in the mind and purpose of God before creation and the certainty of its implementation. In contrast JUSTIFICATION AT CALVARY (TRANSACTIONAL JUSTIFICATION, COMMERCIAL JUSTIFICATION, JUSTIFICATION BY THE BLOOD, etc.) is the required payment, codified in the plan and agreed upon by the Godhead, that was fulfilled by Christ.
So, are God’s people JUSTIFIED FROM ETERNITY or are they JUSTIFIED AT CALVARY? The answer is, "Yes." At first blush that seems contradictory, but it is not. It is a rhetorical paradox, not a logical paradox. A rhetorical paradox is a "seeming" contradiction that is logically resolved through additional qualification on what is intended by JUSTIFICATION in each instance. JUSTIFICATION FROM ETERNITY speaks of the unalterable plan of God; JUSTIFICATION AT CALVARY speaks of the required payment codified in that plan. I believe that this precision of language is required to avoid exalting one JUSTIFICATION over the another. They are both true, but they each address different aspects of how the bible speaks on JUSTIFICATION. To the extent that we clearly delineate those distinctions, we clarify JUSTIFICATION and avoid the logical contradictions that confuse the sheep.
Good discussion.
- Elder Daniel Samons