“Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation,
even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men,
resulting in justification of life.” (Rom 5:18, KJV )
Those who have the courage to read through the classic text Foxe’s Christian Martyrs come to the shocking conclusion that most Christian martyrs had to sacrifice their lives for the basic theological concept of justification. Some had their hands chopped off, many were beheaded, placed on burning pyres, others were crucified because they were not prepared to compromise their understanding and preaching of justification.
If justification was then the main reason these martyrs died, I suspect that it would have been quite central to their last thoughts. A.W Tozer said “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” There is a hidden element to be found in the concept of justification that these men of God were familiar with, something that made their unquestionable embrace of death possible.
Webster’s defines justification as “remission of sin and absolution from guilt and punishment; or an act of free grace by which God pardons the sinner and accepts him as righteous, on account of the atonement of Christ”. The scripture from Romans mentioned earlier makes it clear that through Christ Jesus’ act of righteousness, an innocent being dying for mankind, we are all justified. Thayer considers it as “the act of God declaring men free from guilt and acceptable to him”. Strong’s adds “acquittal (for Christ’s sake)”, and traces it back to the root word, which means “to render (that is, show or regard as) just or innocent”.
We are well aware of the fact that justification implies guilt. We know that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23); we know: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10); we know that “the wages of sin is death”; we know the entire world is guilty before God (Rom 3:19). No wonder the author of Ecclesiastics is so bitter – he too knew that “there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin” (Ecc 7:20).
Yet we argue that if this is man’s natural fallen state there is little we can do to alter it. Indeed we have little control over it all, as crime, murder, theft, illness, and death are all products of our fallen state, part of an everyday reality we need to learn to understand and come to terms with. Along with Paul we have moments of existential despair, calling out into the night, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
We cannot understand the concept of justification if 1 Pet 3:18 does not become a reality to us – “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God …”
- Sela: Ask the Holy Spirit to convince you of any sin in your life (John 16:8).
- Read: 2 Chr 32; Job 31; Isa 12
- Memorise: Isa 12:3
- For a deeper understanding: Take the trouble to work through Foxe’s Christian matyrs.
