Lutheran Vocational Evangelism

(Lutheran Difference in Justification)

Justification is the heart and soul of Christianity. Justification means to be made just and right in God’s eyes. When we acknowledge that we are “brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5), that “every intention of the thoughts of [our] heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5), that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), indeed that we are truly sinful human beings, we then realize there is nothing within us of redeeming value. Just as a drowning person cannot save himself or he would not be drowning, just as a dying person cannot save himself or he would not be dying, just as we did not choose to be born, so we do nothing to justify ourselves before God.

If we were to attempt to put forth any merit on our own part as Paul so well reminds us (Rom. 7:21ff), if we attempt to justify ourselves by keeping the Law, such as being obedient (James 2:10), we then would be held accountable for keeping the whole law. After the fall into sin, the world was cursed. Adam and Eve no longer knew only good; now they knew good and evil, so their and the will of all has been tainted so that our will is truly at odds with God. Our will is only to do what is evil. As Paul reminds us, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).

Our right standing before God does not come from ourselves as we are not and cannot be the people He would have us to be. If we could be the people He would have us to be, then we would have no need of Him. What a fool we claim Jesus to be for sacrificing Himself when we point to ourselves for any iota of our own justification and salvation.

Justification is all Jesus. The fullness of the Gospel is that Jesus did what He did for us in our place as our substitute. Jesus lived the perfect life demanded of us, for us, in our place making us just and right in God’s eyes. This is Justification, and this God freely gives to us because it is His to give. We do not get it as if we “get saved,” nor do we claim it as if it is our claim. Rather it is given to us from the One whose it is and Who can give it to us.

8 of 52    © Rev. Dr. Ronald A. Bogs (2018)