What Does the Bible Say about Justification by Faith?

Generally speaking, justification shows something to be right or acceptable. People justify actions by providing explanations or reasons to defend them. In philosophy and ethics, justification refers to giving sufficient support for a belief or behavior, making it rationally sound. Legally, it means proving someone is technically innocent, acting within the law. Justification excuses someone from legal punishment. 

Biblically, justification means being declared righteous by God. It describes how God, as the only righteous judge, pronounces a sinner “not guilty” and places them in the pure, right position before him. According to the Bible, justification doesn’t mean God overlooks sin. Instead, he provides a way to be declared innocent before him. 

We need justification because we don’t intrinsically possess righteousness before God. All people have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). From the Fall and Adam’s rebellion, sin and death entered the world, spreading to all humanity (Romans 5:12). Because our acts are based on selfishness and sin, even our righteous acts are like filthy rags before God (Isaiah 64:6). Without justification, we stand condemned, spiritually dead, and separated from God forever in an eternal torment. 

God is holy and just. His righteousness is for the best of everyone, bringing life. Sin leads to harm, abuse, and death. Therefore, he can’t ignore sin without compromising his love and justice. God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil.” (Habakkuk 1:13) His character and love demand sin be punished. No amount of good works or religious effort can reverse this. Paul writes in Galatians 2:16, “by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.” 

We require justification as the only way to be reconciled to God and escape his wrath and the deserved punishment for sin. God’s justification removes guilt and gives us peace with God (Romans 5:1). Through this work, God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) 

Biblical justification changes our standing before God, securing our eternal hope in the Kingdom of God. Without justification, we remain under judgment. With it, we’re forgiven, accepted, and made free in Christ to live for God. 

However, we don’t naturally get justification. We must act in faith to receive it. 

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Faith is the confident trust in God and his promises, even when we don’t see them in the natural world. Hebrews 11:1 gives the famous definition of faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This faith has both substance and evidence. It’s not blind belief. Faith’s substance and evidence come from the eternal and unseen, a perception beyond physical reality and standing on God’s heavenly truth. Faith looks past the temporary situation to trust God’s character and plan. 

The Bible explains how faith includes both heart and action. It begins with belief, but this isn’t an academic or intellectual assent to a statement. Scripture declares how we act from belief; our behavior reveals what we believe. Faith moves the heart to trust and obey. James 2:17 explores this, telling us how, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Real faith results in a different way of life, choosing the Father’s way over our own, even when costly. 

Faith comes as a gift from God. It’s not something we can earn or manufacture, ensuring the whole of salvation is a complete work of God (Ephesians 2:8-9). God initiates faith by revealing himself and drawing us to him. The Holy Spirit opens hearts and minds to believe and follow Jesus. God’s grace empowers us to act by faith. Our job is to simply participate, to willingly rest and rely upon the power and truth of God. We submit our will to the gift he wants to give us. 

As an example, God called Abraham to leave his homeland and go to a place he’d never seen. Abraham had a promise: God would make him a great nation (Genesis 12:1-4). Abraham believed God and acted from that faith. He didn’t have all the details, nor did he understand, but he believed in the One who called him. Called the Father of Faith, Abraham’s faith wasn’t passive but active. Neither was he perfect. However, his life was identified with believing God’s promises and walking in obedience. 

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The Bible teaches that God justifies sinners by faith, not by our works. God freely gives us justification through faith in Jesus Christ. The justification we need comes by trusting in God’s power rather than ourselves.

Paul states in Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Faith is the avenue to being made right with God, having peace with the divine instead of conflict from our rebellion. Romans 3:28 describes how we can’t make it right on our own. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.” In the letter to the Roman church, the fellowship was made up of both Jews and Gentiles, and he needed to challenge the Jewish idea that obedience to the Old Testament Law could make a person right with God. Only faith in Christ could do that.

Looking at Abraham again as our example, Genesis 15:6 says: “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Paul quotes this twice in his letters (Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6). Hundreds of years before God gave the Law, God counted Abraham as righteous because of the man believed and acted upon God’s promises, not because of his own ability. Abraham couldn’t have kids. He and his wife were far too old. Yet they moved in belief that God would do the impossible, give them a son, and that faith made them right with the Lord.

The New Testament writers didn’t dismiss the Law, nor the Old Testament. On the contrary, they realized salvation has always been a work of God. The Israelites didn’t deserve deliverance from Egyptian slavery or the Promised Land. God worked out of compassion and by his covenant. The Law was meant for a time to teach the inability of humanity to perform the heavenly life (Galatians 3:24). As Habakkuk the prophet said, “The just shall live by faith,” revealing the same principle within the Old Testament.

Paul had to learn this, as well. As he wrote in Philippians 3:9, “Not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” At one time, Paul trusted in his own religious knowledge and works but counted them as rubbish, garbage, compared to knowing Christ.

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Being justified by faith means we have been declared righteous before God, not because of anything we have done but because we trust in what Christ has done for us. Justification by faith frees us from pointless and useless striving, trying to earn God’s love through our works. Now we have peace with God through Jesus. From this, we must remember several amazing benefits. 

First, we are forgiven. God no longer counts our sins against us because Christ took them on our behalf on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21). Second, we are adopted into the family of God, with the Lord as our Father. He doesn’t justify us to become slaves or servants, but children who call him “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). Third, since we didn’t earn justification through works, we don’t fear condemnation or judgment. We have an eternal security through walking by the Spirit and not the flesh (Romans 8:1). Fourth, this security gives us amazing and unshakable hope in the future Kingdom of God and his glory. Not only do we not get what we deserve from sin, but we get what we don’t deserve in an abundant eternal life with God. 

We no longer walk in guilt or shame but grace, able to live out our faith in love and obedient relationship. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit (Galatians 3:14) and free access to approach the throne of God in prayer. 

For this, we rejoice! (Romans 5:2) God alone gets the glory. We have no reason to boast but every reason to worship him. Justification by faith removes our pride, humbles us, and lifts up Christ as the singular source of our salvation and righteousness. Every good gift, from our salvation to complete sanctification, comes through the power of God.

Therefore, as Christians, we learn to live and walk by faith and the Spirit. In this, we not only find justification but peace, love, intimacy, purpose, and more. We keep our eyes fixed on Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. All glory belongs to him.

Peace.

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