JUSTIFICATION AND FAITH

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:” Romans 5:1.

Many interpret this verse to mean that faith is the cause of God justifying the sinner, and thereby make justification simultaneous with faith.  However, the context reveals that the justification of a sinner is conditioned entirely upon the work of Christ in His death and resurrection, not faith.  “Therefore,” refers back to the preceding verse in Romans 4:25- “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”  Romans 5:1 should then read, “Therefore being, or having been declared just, (based on the redeeming work of Christ alone), by or, out of faith, we have peace with God…” The peace of God enjoyed by the justified sinner comes by God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Faith is not the reason that God justifies the sinner; it is the result of God having justified him through the blood and righteousness of Christ.  Faith is the evidence of the justification that Christ has obtained by His righteous life and death.  Those whom God justified by the blood (death) of His Son, He will most certainly in time cause to believe because their sins have already been put away and He declared them righteous at the cross, Romans 5:9.  Colossians 2:13 clearly shows that the reason God regenerates sinners is not in order to justify them, but because they have been justified in Christ through His redemptive work-“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;”

We dare not make faith the cause of justification; any more than one would make the will of man the cause of saving grace.  In His time, all whom God has justified in Christ, through the death of His Son, He will most certainly cause to believe on Christ.  If you are a believer, it is the righteousness and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that justifies you before God, not your faith.  Faith is the result of the Sovereign Spirit’s work in your heart, causing you to enter into the peace, joy, and fellowship established already for you by Christ’s work at the cross.  If you are His by grace, faith is the evidence of God having justified you already in Christ.  When Christ cried, “It is finished,” it is!