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Justifying justification

The doctrine of justification and imputed righteousness of God

To be justified is to be right with God, and 'justification by grace through faith alone' was the rallying cry of the majesterial Reformation.

In 1538, Luther expounded Psalm 130.4 and referring to justification claimed that 'if this article stands, the church stands; if it falls, the church falls'. (1)
From that time, through the teaching of men like John Owen in the 17th century, Whitefield in the 18th, Spurgeon in the 19th and Lloyd-Jones in the 20th, the doctrine of justification by faith alone has been the great hallmark of evangelical Christianity, the jewel in the crown of Protestant thought, bringing peace to many a troubled conscience and a deep assurance in the face of certain death.
It therefore strikes one as odd, if not perverse, that such a doctrine is having a hard time today within evangelicalism. When was the last time you heard an evangelistic address which spelt out this truth clearly? Certainly it is a doctrine which is an embarrassment ecumenically as it still divides the Roman Catholic Church from all mainline Protestant churches. It may also jar in an age which tries to explain away sin and conceive of our estrangement from God in terms of 'existential alienation', rather than actual guilt which incurs God's anger. Were the Reformers so wrong in seeing this as central to our understanding of the gospel? Or are some modern commentators, like James Dunn, right in viewing this as one metaphor among many and not a central one at that?

Not ashamed

In order to clarify the meaning and significance of this doctrine, we shall focus on one passage which provides the springboard for Paul's programmatic unfolding of the gospel - Romans 1.16-17: 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous shall live by faith'.' (2)
Notice the logical link between verses 16 and 17 - Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation ... because in the gospel a righteousness from God is being revealed. In Paul's mind, the gospel and the question of 'righteousness' are inseparable (both the noun 'righteousness' (dikaiosune) and verb 'to justify' (dikaioun) have the same root: the dik- group).
The key term is 'righteousness of God' (dikaiosune theou). What does this mean?

The righteousness of God
Three basic views have been put forward.(3)

First, righteousness is seen as a moral quality of God (possessive genitive), such that all his actions are just and in keeping with his character, so 'the Judge of the earth will do what is right' (Genesis 18.25). In Romans 3.25-26, we are told that God demonstrates his righteous character, his justice (dikaiosune), by presenting Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement. He does not ignore sin (v. 25b), but deals with it and at the same time shows himself to be the 'one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus'.
Second, the 'righteousness of God' is construed as a divine activity (subjective genitive) whereby God intervenes to save his people and so is acting in accord with his covenant promises. The most obvious background for this is the Book of Isaiah, especially chapters 40-66, where God's righteousness and action in saving belong to the same world of thought e.g. 'I am bringing my righteousness near ... and my salvation will not be delayed' (Isaiah 46.13).
Third, the term can be taken not as subjectively referring to God, but objectively, stating what God achieves for us, whereby we are declared to be acquitted by God (which we can call the negative aspect of justification - he 'justifies the wicked', Romans 4.5) and then positively as now standing in a right relationship with the judge, credited as righteous (as was Abraham: Genesis 15.6; Romans 4, especially 23ff). This is sometimes referred to as 'imputed' righteousness.
To understand this more fully, it is helpful to have some knowledge of workings of the Hebrew law court which, it is generally agreed, stands behind much of Paul's use of the term 'to justify' in Romans and Galatians.

Jewish court

In the Jewish court, three people were involved: the judge, plaintiff and defendant. The judge is 'righteous' if he tries the case according to law, is impartial, punishes as sin deserves and supports those who cannot uphold their own cause (the widow and fatherless).
As there was no counsel for the prosecution or defence, both the accuser and defendant would argue their own case until one conceded defeat. The sign that such defeat had been admitted was the placing of one's hand over the mouth (which may be the background to Paul's statement in Romans 3.19: '... so that every mouth may be silenced.'). The verdict would then be pronounced on which of the two was 'in the right'. In other words, the term 'justified' denoted a person's status, from the judge's ruling; it had nothing to do with their moral character, only that they were vindicated against their accuser.

Imputed righteousness

Some, like Professor N.T. Wright, take the term 'to justify' solely in this sense, denying that God 'imputes' righteousness as a category mistake, while at the same time taking the term 'righteousness of God' to refer solely to the saving activity of God in accord with his covenant promises fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah, the embodiment of all that Israel was meant to be.(4) But this fails to do justice to the plain meaning of texts such as 2 Corinthians 5.21 where Paul describes believers as having 'become the righteousness of God' as well as the whole series of texts in Romans 4 which speaks of righteousness being accredited to those who have faith (a commercial term taken from the world of accountancy - Paul was not averse to mixing his metaphors).
Which of the above interpretations is correct? Is 'the righteousness of God' a moral attribute, a divine activity or a gift freely bestowed? Could it not be that the term is what philosophers call a 'polymorphous concept'? That is, while there is a common core of meaning, the term functions differently according to context. Thus arising out of the righteous character of God, he acts on be-half of the needy (those who cannot save themselves) in accord with his covenant promises, in such a way that he punishes sin while acquitting the sinner, conferring upon them the status of Christ's righteousness. (5)
Helpfully Philip Eveson defines 'justification' as: 'a legal pronouncement made by God in the present, prior to the day of judgement, declaring sinners to be not guilty and therefore acquitted, by pardoning all their sins and reckoning them to be righteous in his sight, on the basis of Christ, their representative and substitute, whose righteousness in life and death is put to their account, when in self-despairing trust they look to him alone for their salvation.'(6)

Central message

Is this important? Our forefathers certainly thought it was (as did Paul, Galatians 1.6ff!). Nothing less than our salvation is at stake. Luther's point that it is the article by which the church stands or falls still remains. Eveson puts the matter boldly yet accurately when he writes: 'If a body calling itself 'the church' loses this central message of justification, it will soon have no good news to present. It will become another superstitious religious institution, falsely bearing the name Christian. What is more, the people will continue to be in the dark, heading for hell, while at the same time trusting in a Jesus of faulty human thought and heretical church tradition'.(7) To neglect this teaching is to court disaster, to recapture it is the road to renewal.

References:
1. Luther's Works, XL3, 352, Weimar edition.

2. For a readable survey and critique of the present debate, read Philip Eveson's The Great Exchange, Day One Publications, 1996. For a more technical discussion, D.A. Carson (ed.) Right with God, Paternoster, 1992.

3. These are reviewed in Stott's The Mess-age of Romans (p.61-65) IVP, 1996, and N.T. Wright What Paul really said (pp.100-111) SPCK, 1997.

4. N.T. Wright, ibid. (p.98).

5. John Stott in his commentary on Romans writes: 'For myself, I have never been able to see why we have to choose, and why all three should not be combined.' (p.63).

6. Eveson, The Great Exchange (p.193).
7. Ibid. (p.175).
Melvin Tinker