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Paul Doubles-Down on Justification
By John R. Gavazzoni



Up front, I deem it of most importance, that on the subject of justification, it must be made clear that what has come to be the very popular view of what it means to be justified before God, in fact, involves a deplorable misunderstanding. It is a deplorable misunderstanding that deplorably, at the most fundamental level, seeks to portray God...before any and all other considerations are to be taken into account....as first and foremost of a legal mindset as to how He relates to mankind's lostness.

The popular view posits that justification involves a legal transaction by which God "imputes," i.e., legally reckons a person as having a right standing before Him because Jesus, in our stead, by His death, satisfied the demands of the law on our behalf. God, in that view, is seen in salvation's opening stage, as setting aside the problem of our existential condition as lost sinners, making that problem a matter of His later work of actually saving us from the power of sin in our lives, and ultimately from the very presence of sin. For some, if not most, this is to be understood as the work of sanctification.

The believer is to take comfort in his legal standing before God while he wrestles with the world, the flesh, and the devil, being obligated to build upon his legal standing before God a life lived actually pleasing to God. In other words, while, in his spiritual failures, he may be losing out in terms of his fellowship with God, he can rest assured that, nevertheless, he stands un-condemned in the courtroom of heavenly justice. As I've written before, this view has God dealing with us in a courtroom, rather in the family room.

Contrary to the above, justification is about the impartation of the Life of Christ as our life ("....I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me..." -- Paul), that actually sets in motion the process of making us existentially right: right in relationship to God, to ourselves, to others, and to all creation. The root of the Greek word for "justify," has the meaning of "to make right." To coin a word, God rightifies us. To be justified is to be rightified, made right. Having been justified/rightified, our state is one of justification/rightification. In Rom. chapter 5, Paul explains that through one transgression (of Adam) there resulted condemnation to all men, even so, through one act of righteousness there resulted justification OF LIFE to all men (Rom. 5:18, NASB)

Please note, the justification/rightification is not of a legal accounting, but OF Life. It's in, by, and from the imparted life of Christ, whereby, as our life, He rightly relates to God, which is the essence of a right life. Christ in us rightly responds in faith to the Father's love. That is the core dynamic of a life lived rightly. Such it is with "righteousness." As justification is rightification, so righteousness is rightness. The word, "righteousness," carries a lot of religious baggage until we realize that it's simply rightness.

I've titled this article as: Paul Doubles-Down on Justification, because I want the reader to see something awesome about our justification, something so very heartwarming and security-building. In chapter 5, we learn of justification's universal scope, In chapter 8, we learn of justification as it is rooted in God's foreknowledge and predestination. There, those justified, are those predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son. They are justified as those foreknown, called, and glorified. It's important to link chapter 8 with chapter 5 to understand the progression of Paul's thought, with chapter 6 up to the first part of 8 being a parenthetical insert.

In the parenthesis of chapter 6 through the first section of 8, he fixes the attention of the Roman Christians on the death, burial and resurrection as central to God's universal work on behalf of fallen mankind, emphasizing how important it is that they understand their union with Christ, by which their old man has been crucified with Christ, and risen to new life with Him by His resurrection, i.e., that mankind's justification, and theirs in particular, was by the accomplishment of that Christ Event. Now, let's take a close look at the progression of Paul's thought in chapter 8, as he continues from chapter 5.

In verses 29 and 30, we see that justification, before it becomes an existential, subjective experience, is a matter of the "whom," and the "these," of God's foreknowledge and predestination referred to in those two verses. (The NASB has, "these," while the KJV has "those.") Best for the reader to have their Bibles open to those two verses to follow along with me. We must also consider how vs 28 leads into vss 29 and 30, the three comprising a context within the context of the chapter, within the context of the epistle, within the context of the whole of the Bible's message. The way the KJV translates the Greek of vs 28 is seen to be out of sync with the biblical story of God's salvation for the whole of humanity.

Instead of God working all things for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose, as the KJV has it, the verse should read that all men are called unto good in/by those who love God and are called according to His purpose. This is seen in the amplification and expansion of the Greek text, along with an alternate rendering, in Jonathan Mitchell's Translation of the New Testament, to which, without pre-consultation with Mitchell, Greek and Hebrew student, Ed Browne, concurred. The main thread throughout the Bible as to God's working in, by, and through those called of God at any given time, is that by their calling, others should be called and accordingly blessed. As G. Campbell Morgan understood: "God does not elect pets, He elects patterns."

So, connecting 5:18 and 19 with 8:29 and 30, taking into account the lead-in of vs 28, rightly translated, we see that the "these" or "those," and the "whom" of vss 28 and 29, are the "all men" of Rom. 5:18, Because in vs 29 we have "justified," as part of the package of "predestined," "called," and "glorified." They are all one package, so to speak, of God's determination for mankind, with the "predestination" of vs 29 traced back to the "foreknew," of vs 28, i.e., God predestined those whom He foreknew.

We cannot have all men justified, as per chapter 5 vs 18, while having "These/those" and "whom" as just a few of the all in chapter 8. This is further seen by how Paul equates "the many" of 5:19 with the "all men" of 5:18. We ought, therefore, to understand that those predestined to become the many brethren of God's first-born Son, those "many" are "all men." So, from the scriptures themselves let's see what the flow of Paul's thought on the subject of justification:

From the NASB:So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men, For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (Rom.5:18, 19)
[allowing for a parenthesis, we go onto]:
For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. (Rom.8:29, 30)

Addendum: In the matter of justification as presumed to be forensically/legally-based, it is also presumed that said justification is afforded to the believer by, and according to, "the merits of Jesus Christ." This is quite explicit in its development through the centuries in Roman Catholic theology, and implicit in the development of Protestant (and especially evangelical) theology. Such a notion would have us believing that, in the relationship of the Father and Son, merit has a place, that by our Lord's obedience to the Father, He has gained merit with the Father, and that justification should be understood as those merits gained by Jesus accrues to one according to that one's "obedience of faith."

The atrocious implication is clear: Jesus earns His Father's loving pleasure by His obedience, rather than the truth that the Son's obedience to the Father is the fruit and direct result of the Father's love for Him. The truth that we love God because He first loved us, traces back to, and is rooted in the Father/Son relationship. Justification according to the merits of Jesus Christ: I DON'T THINK SO!

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