Rebecca Stark is the author of The Good Portion: Godthe second title in The Good Portion series.

The Good Portion: God explores what Scripture teaches about God in hopes that readers will see his perfection, worth, magnificence, and beauty as they study his triune nature, infinite attributes, and wondrous works. 

                     

Tuesday
Dec062022

Theological Term of the Week: Justification

justification
A judicial act of God “in which he declares [a believer] righteous, forgiving [their] sins or imputing or reckoning to [them] the righteousness of Jesus Christ.”1
  • From scripture:

    But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 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. 26 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.

    27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3: 21-28 ESV)

    Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith…. (Philippians 3:8-9 ESV)

  • From The London Baptist Confession, 1689, Chapter 11

    Of Justification

    1. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing Christ’s active obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves; it is the gift of God.

    2. Faith thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet it is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.

    3. Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are justified; and did, by the sacrifice of himself in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty due unto them, make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice in their behalf; yet, inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners.

  • From Systematic Theology by Robert Letham, page 677:
    Justification refers to our legal standing with God. It is the obverse of the condemnation we were under due to sin. Justification is a forensic act; to justify means to declare righteous. The ground of justification is the righteousness of Christ imputed, or reckoned to us, not the righteousness of Christ imparted or infused … .
    Justification is only by faith. When a person believes … he or she is therby justified on the grounds of Christ and his righteousness, whatever his or her past state may have been. However, while justification is only by faith, sinse it depends on the work of Christ, is is a constitutive act. Those declared righteous are truly righteous (Romans 5:19). This is not legal fiction, since by union with Christ, his righteousness is ours too. 
  • From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof, page 513-514

    The following points of difference between justification and sanctification should be carefully noted:

    1. Justification removes the guilt of sin and restores the sinner to all the filial rights involved in his state as a child of God, including an eternal inheritance. Sanctification removes the pollution of sin and renews the sinner ever-increasingly in conformity with the image of God.

    2. Justification takes place outside of the sinner in the tribunal of God, and does not change his inner life, though the sentence is brought home to him subjectively. Sanctification, on the other hand, takes place in the inner life of man and gradually affects his whole being.

    3. Justification takes place once for all. It is not repeated, neither is it a process; it is complete at once and for all time. There is no more or less in justification; man is either fully justified, or he is not justified at all. In distinction from it sanctification is a continuous process, which is never completed in this life.

    4. While the meritorious cause of both lies in the merits of Christ, there is a difference in the efficient cause. Speaking economically, God the Father declares the sinner righteous, and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies him.

 

Learn more:

  1. Simply Put: Justification 
  2. Ligonier Ministries: Justification
  3. Leon Morris: Justification
  4. Tom Schreiner: The Righteousness of God in Justification
  5. John Murray: Justification
  6. Philip Eveson: The Doctrine of Justification
  7. Here at this blog: Quiz on Justification

 

Related terms:

 

1 Systematic Theology by Robert Letham, page 669.

 Filed under Salvation


Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.

Sunday
Dec042022

Sunday Hymn: All Poor Men and Humble

 

 

 

All poor men and humble,
all lame men who stumble.
Come haste ye, nor feel ye afraid.
For Jesus our treasure,
with love without measure,
in lowly poor manger is laid.

Though wise men who found him
laid rich gifts around him,
yet oxen they gave him their hay.
And Jesus in beauty
accepted their duty
(contented in manger he lay).

Then haste we to show him
the praises we owe him;
our service he ne’er can despise.
Whose love still is able
to show us that stable
where softly in manger he lies.
—Traditional Welsh Carol
Tuesday
Nov292022

Theological Term of the Week: Irresistible Grace

irresistible grace
God’s saving grace effectually applied to those he has chosen to save, causing their natural enmity toward him to disappear so that they willingly repent and believe in Jesus. See also effectual call.
  • From scripture:

    For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. (John 6:44 ESV)

    One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.  (Acts 16:14 ESV)

    And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:3-6 ESV)

  • From The Canons of Dordt, Head III-IV, Article 11

    [W]hen God … works true conversion in [his chosen ones], he not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly, and enlightens their minds powerfully by the Holy Spirit so that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God, but, by the effective operation of the same regenerating Spirit, he also penetrates into the inmost being of man, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised. He infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant; he activates and strengthens the will so that, like a good tree, it may be enabled to produce the fruits of good deeds.What is the communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death?

  • From Living for God’s Glory by Joel Beeke:
    Unfortunately, the term irresistible can suggest capricious force or violence to a sinner’s will. To some, it conveys the picture of a mother sitting her child at the kitchen table with spinach and liver and saying, “Eat!” But that is not the meaning… Though the irresistible grace of God in calling sinners is forceful and compelling, it works in such a way that the sinner’s will is so renewed that he comes to Christ gladly and willingly. If you are a believer, you know that when grace took hold of you, it brought you willingly and lovingly to what God had predetermined for you. No one in history has ever done anything more willingly and more lovingly than those who receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Think of Lydia (Acts 16:14-15) and the Philippians jailor (Acts 16:30-34); they were not saved against their wills.

    On the other hand, God must work within the sinner to make him willing to come to Christ. John 6:44 says that unless the Father “draws” him, a sinner will not believe the gospel. The original word for draw implies a certain compelling force. Is is used in John 21:6-11 of fishermen dragging a net. Elsewhere, it is used of Paul and Silas’s being “dragged” by a mob. (Acts 16:19) and of the “dragging” of poor men into court by rich men (James 2:6). The idea is that a superiour force is so exerted upon an object or person the the one doing the dragging is successful.the intermediate state, believers are not simply in contemplative repose. Nor are they lost souls wandering throughout the realm of shadows or crossing back and forth over the river Styx ferried by Charon. Rather, they are made part of the company assembled at the true Zion, with “innumerable angels in festal gathering” and “the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Able” (Heb 12:22—24).

 

Learn more:

  1. Simply Put: Irresistible Grace
  2. Got Questions: Irresistible Grace - is it biblical? 
  3. R. C. Sproul: Irresistible Grace
  4. Sam Storms: 10 Things You Should Know About Irresistible Grace
  5. Joel Beeke: What Is Irresistible Grace?
  6. Matthew Barrett: Is Irresistible Grace Unbiblical?
  7. John Murray: Irresistible Grace

 

Related terms:

 

 Filed under Reformed Theology and Salvation


Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.