Shorter Catechism Q. 33. What is justification? A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
Commentary: One of the benefits we receive in union and communion with Christ is justification. This benefit is a forensic act of God in contrast to a transformative work of God. It is a legal declaration by a judge that says something about us. It is not something that is done in us nor is it a process that occurs over time. Moreover, it is not something we do but what God the judge does.
Justification involves God pardoning, not some but all our sins. To pardon means to remove (the guilt of) our sins as far as the east is from the west so that we are no longer liable to punishment. Consequently, in justification, God declares that we are not guilty and that we are no longer condemned for our sins. This is why it has rightly been said that justification means that God treats me “just-as-if-I’d” never sinned.
Justification, however, also includes accepting us as righteous in God’s sight. God legally declares that we are righteous. We are, therefore, not only free from the punishment of sin, but we are also given the right to eternal life.
The ground for our justification is the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed or reckoned to us. The righteousness of Christ is personally Christ’s righteousness, but it becomes ours in union with him. As in marriage, what is his is ours. We are justified in Christ and not apart from him.
The imputed righteousness of Christ is the only ground for our justification. We aren’t justified, in whole or in part, on the basis of our regeneration or sanctification or good works or even our faith. Jesus’ work of redemption (i.e., “the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ” WLC 70) is the only ground or reason that we aren’t condemned for our sins and that we are given the right to eternal life.
God, however, doesn’t justify everyone but only those who are united to Jesus by faith. Although other saving graces (e.g., repentance) are present and accompany it, faith is the only means or instrument of justification (see WCF 11.2). A living, working eye is not detached from a living, working head that has ears that hear and a nose that smells and a mouth that speaks. But it is only the eye that sees, not the nose or ears. Likewise, faith is not the only saving grace present in a person, but it is only faith that justifies, and not repentance, love, or hope.
Although Christ’s work of redemption satisfies justice on our behalf, justification is, nonetheless, “an act of God’s free grace” because “as much as God accepteth the satisfaction from a surety, which he might have demanded of them and did provide this surety, his own only Son, imputing his righteousness to them, and requiring nothing of them for their justification but faith, which also is his gift, their justification is to them of free grace (WLC 71).”