Justification

What does it mean to be justified? Essentially, it means to be made right. To move from a place of guilt and sin to a place of RIGHTeousness. We were, we are, in the wrong, and God has taken the steps to make us right in His sight, to wash away our guilt and offer us salvation and freedom.

The amazing thing about all of this is that it is not up to us. Like grace, which we talked about a few weeks back, justification is not about anything that we do to right our wrongs or work off our guilt. It is absolutely about God's free gift. He loves us and has chosen to make us right, to justify us.

It is laid out clearly in Romans 3 below.

"For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." -- Romans 3:20-26