Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

JUSTIFICATION

English Bibles render Heb. ṣdq and Gk. dikaioún as both “just, justice, justify” and “right, righteous(ness), rightwise.” Righteousness/justification language occurs more than 800 times in the OT and NT.

Both the Hebrew and Greek can denote self-justification, seeking to put oneself “in the right.” Job “justified himself rather than God” (Job 32:2; cf. 33:32; 9:2). The setting of such attempts may be a lawsuit, involving God and the nations (Isa. 43:9) or Israel (43:26); then it will be shown that God is righteous (45:21, 24). The lawyer in Luke 10:29 wanted “to justify himself” by asking Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Money-loving Pharisees are said to try to justify themselves in the sight of other people (Luke 16:15).

A further application is the justification of God. In the Lord’s speech to Job from the whirlwind the issue is theodicy or defense of God’s ways to mortals (Job 40:8; cf. Gen. 18:25; Ps. 37:5-6, 28-34; Jer. 12:1; Ezek. 18, , esp. vv. 25-29). In the NT wisdom is justified by her deeds (Matt. 11:19) or children (Luke 7:35; Rev. 15:3-4; 16:5-7; 19:2). Paul frequently defends God’s judgments (2 Thess. 1:5; cf. Rom. 2:5-11; 9:19-24) and ways of salvation (Rom. 3:4-6). Indeed, Romans contains a vindication of how, given God’s plan with Israel, salvation has come to the Gentiles (3:28-30; 9:24, 30; 15:8-12) and a rebuke against Gentile Christian presumptuousness which counts Israel out (11:11-24).

Paul’s justification of God is inseparably related to his major theme, especially in Romans, of the justification of the ungodly, to whom faith is reckoned as righteousness (Rom. 4:5).

Specific references to justification reflect pre-Pauline confessional slogans about Jesus’ death and resurrection resulting in “our justification” (Rom. 4:25), brought home to believers as sanctification-justification via baptism, into Christ, with the Spirit (1 Cor. 6:11). Paul’s was an apostolic “ministry of justification” (2 Cor. 3:9), for Jew and Gentile both, i.e., all the world (Rom. 1:16; 2:9-10; 9:24; 10:12; 1 Cor. 12:13). From his own experience and study of Scripture (esp. Gen. 15:6; Ps. 143:2; Hab. 2:4), the principle emerged that “no one is justified before God by the law” but rather by faith (Gal. 3:6-14; cf. Rom. 3:20, 28) and that God’s blessing, spoken to Abraham, comes to Gentiles without their being circumcised or performing other “works of the law” (Rom. 4) that were part of Israel’s identity markers for remaining in the Sinai covenant. Paul’s opposition to such “covenantal nomism” or focus on the Law brought him into conflict with Cephas and “people from James” in Antioch and then into a struggle with such views in Galatia (Gal. 2:15-21; cf. 5:4-5).

In Romans Paul unfolded the gospel for a community he had not founded, precisely in terms of this biblical master theme, the righteousness (dikaiosýnē) of God (Rom. 1:16-17). Only after presenting Gentiles and Jews alike under God’s judgment (Rom. 1:18–3:20) and a reference to “the justice of God” (3:5, God as Judge), does Paul in 3:22, 24-26 set forth our being justified by God’s grace through faith in Jesus. The sacrificial death of Christ explains how God remains just while expiating sins. Justification is not merely an initial step toward salvation, in the believer’s past, but also involves future vindication and living out the experience in the present (Rom. 5:1; cf. 2:13; 3:20, 24). Justification is the foundation for carrying out God’s will in daily life by service to others, in church and world (Rom. 12:1-2), including “whatever is just” (Phil. 4:8).

For Paul, justification is the prime effect of the Christ event, a metaphor of salvation along with “participation ‘in Christ’ ” and the gift of the Spirit. This theme must be considered along with the related word fields of “grace” and “faith” as well as, in English, “righteousness.” Jas. 2:14-26 suggests how prominent justification was in the NT period and how Paul’s view could be misunderstood, even by his followers. James follows contemporary Jewish exegesis of Gen. 15:6 by combining it with Gen. 22 (the sacrifice of Isaac), an effort by a later (Jewish) Christian to correct a view of justification that lacks the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5) expressed in help for others (as Paul insisted in Gal. 5:6; Rom. 13:8-10).

OT and NT understandings of justification stand often in close connection with “judgment.” Indeed, “righteousness” (ṣĕḏāqâ) and “justice” (mišpāṭ) can be used in synonymous parallelism (Amos 5:24; Isa. 11:4). The connection between justification and justice has been made in liberation theology.

See Righteousness.

Bibliography. M. Barth, Justification: Pauline Texts Interpreted in the Light of the Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, 1971); D. A. Carson, ed., Right with God: Justification in the Bible and the World (Grand Rapids, 1992); N. A. Dahl, “The Doctrine of Justification,” in Studies in Paul (Minneapolis, 1977), 95-120; J. D. G. Dunn and A. M. Suggate, The Justice of God (Grand Rapids, 1993); A. E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1998); H. G. Reventlow and Y. Hoffman, eds., Justice and Righteousness. JSOTSup 137 (Sheffield, 1992); M. A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith. NovTSup 68 (Leiden, 1992).

John Reumann

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

JUSTIFICATION

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)