Justification is from the Greek word dikaioo, and the word occurs 38 times in the New Testament. The related words in its family include righteous (dikaios), righteousness (dikaiosune), and righteous judgment (dikaiokrisia). Justification is defined by Thayer as “to judge, declare, or pronounce righteous and therefore acceptable.” He goes further to say, “Especially it is so used, in the technical phraseology of Paul, respecting God who judges and declares such men as put faith in Christ to be righteous and acceptable to him, and accordingly fit to receive the pardon of their sins and eternal life.”
Earle states that dikaioo was used in the early Greek writers to signify “custom, rule, right, and righteous in performing duties to gods and men.” Earle quotes Vincent as saying, “Justification aims directly at character. It contemplates making the man himself right.”
W.E. Vine says, “Ideally the complete fulfillment of the Law of God would provide a basis of justification in His sight, Romans 2:13. But no such case has occurred in mere human experience, and therefore no one can be justified on this ground, Romans 3:9-20.” From the context, the “Law” which Paul had in mind was the Law of Moses.
One incredibly common way that justification is taught today is through imputed righteousness. This essentially means that when we acknowledge faith in Christ, God “covers” us with the Christ’s righteousness so that our sins aren’t visible to Him anymore. But this fails to see that “righteousness” is used in the New Testament to denote God’s way of making man right or justifying him. This is the exact way the concept is taught in Romans 1:16 and Philippians 3:9.
One can quickly see the importance of “justification” to Paul because he uses it 15 times in the book of Romans. The word has a variety of meaning in the New Testament, but the most intriguing is the use between Paul and James. Paul is mainly concerned with a right relationship before God, while James is concerned with right conduct and behavior before God. The two do not conflict, but rather harmonize the total teaching of justification. Justification only comes about by faith and obedience. Don’t let people deceive you and make you miss part of how God justifies you in Jesus Christ.
Kyle Campbell