There are several areas of justification by faith that are misunderstood and misinterpreted. If you do not agree with me on some of the things I have to say, that would be quite natural. If you have an open mind and a teachable spirit, I would like to present some material that I believe will help us to understand some of these things that are so difficult.
“For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.” Romans 4:3. Let’s look closer at the word “counted.” Abraham’s belief was counted unto him for righteousness. Verse 5 says: “ But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” These words and others like them elsewhere in the Scriptures cause people a great deal of confusion about justification by faith. Because of these words, they say that justification by faith is only a change in the records. The theory is that there is really no change in the life. It is just an accounting system where, though I am counted righteous, I really am not righteous. Many believe that this is justification by faith. Is God merely keeping books in justification by faith, or is He changing lives? Is there a literal change in the life from sin to righteousness; or does God just enter into the book of accounting that we are righteous, even though we continue to practice sin?
There is evidence in the Spirit of Prophecy that would lead us to believe He is keeping good books. “By faith he [meaning the sinner], who has so grievously wronged and offended God, can bring to God the merits of Christ, and the Lord places the obedience of His Son to the sinner’s account. Christ’s righteousness is accepted in place of man’s failure.” COR 19. People read this and say God is keeping books in justification by faith.
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1. Ellen White, in the book Christ Our Righteousness quotes this verse on page 20, and inserts a bracketed note after the word “justified.” The note reads “accounted righteous.” So she defines justification as being accounted righteous. This would make you think that God is doing bookkeeping.
This next quote says essentially the same thing: “By faith he can bring to God the merits of Christ, and the Lord places the obedience of His Son to the sinner’s account [just like that other statement]. Christ’s righteousness is accepted in place of man’s failure, and God receives, pardons, justifies, the repentant, believing soul, treats him as though he were righteous [treats him not as he is, but as though he were righteous], and loves him as He loves His Son. This is how faith is accounted righteousness.” 1 SM 367. God treats him as though he is righteous, and this is how faith is accounted righteousness. It does not say he is righteous. It says He treats him as though he is; and that causes trouble.
Another quote expands on this: “In ourselves we are sinners; but in Christ we are righteous [this is talking about justification]. Having made us righteous through the imputed righteousness of Christ, God pronounces us just, and treats us as just.” 1SM 394. He pronounces us just and treats us as just. But, again, He does not say we are just. In ourselves we are sinners and in Christ we are righteous; and He pronounces us just and treats us as just.
Most understand this to mean that it is as if I were just, or as if I were righteous, but that I am really still a sinner. They say that this is what these statements mean. It is only bookkeeping. This theory holds that I am really not righteous at all, and God is not saying that I am.
“When God pardons the sinner, remits the punishment he deserves, and treats him as though he had not sinned, He receives him into divine favor, and justifies him through the merits of Christ’s righteousness.” 1SM 389. God treats him as though he had not sinned, but he has sinned. With all this evidence, most people say, “Well, justification by faith is bookkeeping. It is just God accounting us righteous, but in no way does it make me righteous.” It is merely accounting, keeping the records of heaven straight; and Adventists are more prone to this idea than others because we teach so much about the record books of heaven and the Judgment.
Before you accept this completely (and many already have accepted it and taught it), you need to pause for awhile and meditate about what you are saying; because you might be saying some things you don’t want to say. What kind of a bookkeeper is your God? Does He falsify the records to make you look good? I shouldn’t say that, should I? That shoots holes in your ideas about accounting. Is God an unjust accountant? Does He make the records say one thing when our lives reveal something else? Are His books kept in that fashion, the ones that are going to judge us? No, we don’t want to think that about God, do we? Be very careful what you assume the Bible is teaching about bookkeeping when it comes to accounting us righteous, for you might make God look like a falsifier of records. Does He not know our lives? And are the records not compatible with our lives? Are they not one and the same thing? I think so. Be careful that you don’t charge God about this.
There is another aspect in looking at this accounting system that is something we almost never think about concerning God’s words, accounting, or promises. “For all the promises of God [and I would like to say accounting there], in Him [in Christ] are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” 2 Corinthians 1:20. Whatever God promises or accounts, it is as though they were, as though they had already been done or taken place. All His promises are yea (yes) and amen (so be it). For when God speaks, things take place, do they not? His speaking is reality. It cannot be otherwise. He creates by His words. And so His accounting is as if it has already happened. He does that with His words.
There is another side to this problem. In justification by faith, is God only keeping books, or is He changing lives? We must come to understand how it is that God is able to justify guilty sinners and why He can do this without being unjust. That is, how can He take sinful people and call them righteous and still be called fair and just? That is exactly what He is doing, isn’t it? How can you do that? God, because He is supreme, cannot bypass His own regulations of justice. We get lost in a quandary and confusion about God’s justice and doing an unjust thing, which is making sinners righteous. How does He do this? We must deal with this, especially when it comes to accounting.
How and why He does this is explained by Paul. He assumes you understand it well, so he just races through it, barely covering the high points. “And therefore it [Abraham’s faith] was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.” Romans 4:22-25. What Paul is saying here is that there is a just reason why God can call the sinful righteous. He does this by laying all our sins on Christ. Christ was punished for your sins and mine. He was delivered for our sins, was punished and died for them, and buried. And the Bible says He was resurrected (there in the last phrase) for our justification. What does that mean? Well, it is so obvious and so simple that you run right by it and miss it. The important thing about the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is that they were sufficient to pay the penalty for all the sins of all mankind.
When Jesus was being punished for our sins, and when He lay in that grave, the Father determined a time when He would send the mightiest angel from heaven to the tomb where Jesus lay. This angel said to the dead Jesus, “Thy Father calls Thee.” DA 780. At those words, Christ resurrected Himself. The disciples had heard Him say that He would raise up the temple of His body in three days. When the Father, the divine Judge, called Him, He (the Father) had determined that justice was satisfied. When all the penalty for all our sins had sufficiently been paid for, then sinners could all be justified.
“Jesus refused to receive the homage of His people until He had the assurance that His sacrifice was accepted by the Father. He ascended to the heavenly courts, and from God Himself heard the assurance that His atonement for the sins of men had been ample, that through His blood all might gain eternal life.” DA 790. The death of the one Person, the punishment of this Lord Jesus Christ, was enough to pay for the sins of all mankind, for all time. The Judge of heaven said the punishment was ample.
This is what the angel who came down from heaven was conveying when he said, “Thy Father calls Thee.” His atonement for our sins had been ample. Ellen White said that He was in that stony prison house as a prisoner of divine justice. He was held captive for our sins, just like in a penitentiary. The devil claimed Him because He was contaminated with our sins, not His own sins. But the Father said it was sufficient. He called Him to come forth from the grave.
“Now He declares: Father, it is finished. I have done Thy will, O My God. I have completed the work of redemption. If Thy justice is satisfied, ‘I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am.’….The voice of God is heard proclaiming that justice is satisfied. Satan is vanquished. Christ’s toiling, struggling ones on earth are ‘accepted in the Beloved.’ Eph.1:6. Before the heavenly angels and the representatives of unfallen worlds, they are declared justified.” DA 834. Justified by whom? Justified by the Father.
All of this was made possible when Jesus died for all our sins. When He was resurrected, He was raised for our justification. After He came out of the grave, the Father Himself assured Him that the atonement had been ample. Man, if he accepts the provision made for his salvation, does not have to be punished for his sins, for Christ has already been punished. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1.
This is enlarged upon in the Spirit of Prophecy in several places. “Justice demands that sin be not merely pardoned, but the death penalty must be executed [justice demands that somebody must die]. God, in the gift of His only-begotten Son, met both these requirements. By dying in man’s stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon.” 6BC 1099. When you exhaust something, how much remains? Nothing. He exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon. God provided both the pardon and the death. The penalty is all gone in Jesus. He is able to justify sinners and still be just, because Christ took all our sins and paid a price sufficient for the penalty—the punishment for every sinner. It is all accomplished in Jesus.
It is by His death, burial, and resurrection that I am justified, as Paul elaborates in Romans 4 so nicely. His sacrifice and His resurrection have earned Jesus the right to justify you, and still be a just God. He has the right to do that. This is how He can do it and why He can do it. If He had not done that in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, we could never be justified. Therefore, God is fair. He is just when He says He will forgive sinners and call the sinful “righteous.” The wise and omniscient One says this.
If this was accomplished two thousand years ago, how do I receive what He has done for me? I receive it by the description that Paul gives in Romans 6 where there is a succession of ideas. He first describes how Christ accomplished it: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.” Romans 4:4-7.
Paul said you are justified by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. You receive that justification and it becomes personal, individual, when you follow Him in this experience of the old man of sin dying, buried in the watery grave and coming up to the new life. We call this the new birth. I have done what some would call a strange thing. I have put justification by faith and the new birth together, all in the same package. You are justified by the death, burial and resurrection according to Romans 4. You receive it in the experience of Romans 6 (the new birth) where following Him in death, burial and resurrection, you come up to a new life.
When you put these two together, you have some unique thoughts and ideas. You cannot separate justification by faith and the new birth without doing damage to one or the other. You must keep them together; and when you put them together you get an unusual answer to that question: Is God only keeping records or changing lives? Justification is identified with the new birth. He is obviously changing lives, right? That is what new birth means, and I must remind you of that. He justifies all in His death, burial, and resurrection. We enter into that experience by following Him in the same experience—in the new birth and the death of the old man of sin.
These similarities and their connection are described in the Spirit of Prophecy. “The righteousness by which we are justified is imputed, the righteousness by which we are sanctified is imparted.” COR 98. The first is our title to heaven; the second is our fitness for heaven. I am justified by faith in Christ’s righteousness as imputed to me. This is my title to heaven. The Bible does not use the word title, to my knowledge. Instead, it uses another word. It is called “birthright,” an oldfashioned term we seldom think about. A title is a right. It is authority.
When I am born again as a child of God in the new birth, I have a title, or a birthright, to heaven, because I am now a son of God. I am one of His relatives. Relatives have certain rights. If you don’t believe it, try to probate a will and you will find out. Try to leave out the relatives with no mention of their names and see what happens to the will. Every relative’s name must be mentioned whether he gets something or not. He has a right by law. The Bible honors relationships, and as I become a child of God, I have a right called a “birthright” or a title to heaven. Birthright is another word for imputed righteousness or justification by faith. The birthright gives you the right to justification by faith, and justification by faith gives you the title to heaven. You cannot separate them or you will do damage to either one or the other.
We can see some of these similarities between the new birth and justification in a few quotations. “In order to obtain the righteousness of Christ, it is necessary to know what that repentance is which works a radical change of mind and spirit and action.” 1SM 393. The radical change of mind is a new heart, the new birth. In order to obtain the righteousness of Christ, it is necessary to know this “radical change of mind and spirit and action.”
“As he [the sinner] beholds the righteousness of Christ in the divine precepts, he exclaims, ‘The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.’” COR 116. How is it that the sinner says that? When he beholds the righteousness of Christ in the law. If you do not see the righteousness of Christ in the law, of course, it does not convert you. When he beholds the righteousness of Christ there in the law, he exclaims, “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” This is talking about conversion and the righteousness that is of faith.
Continuing with the quotation: “As the sinner is pardoned for his transgression through the merits of Christ [which is His righteousness], as he is clothed with the righteousness through faith in Him, he declares with the psalmist, ‘How sweet are Thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.’ ‘More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey in the honeycomb.’ This is conversion.” Ellen White talks about being justified by the merits of Christ, and being clothed with His robe of righteousness. This is conversion, and you cannot separate it from justification by faith. It is impossible.
Elder Daniels, as he studied through this and wrote his book, gave his own thoughts on this in the introductory chapter, page 21: “Righteousness by faith is a transaction, an experience. It is a submitting unto the ‘righteousness of God.’ It is a change of standing before God and His law. It is a regeneration, a new birth.” That is what it is, and we must not change it.
As soon as you have accepted that justification by faith and the new birth are connected, realizing that you cannot separate them, then you have the answer to that problem about whether justification is merely bookkeeping or changing lives. In the new birth it is quite obvious that certain things happen to the life, not merely something to the books. In Romans 6:4, we read that in the new birth, we are to “walk in newness of life.” In 2 Corinthians 5:17, it says that those who are in Christ are new creatures, and that “Old things are passed away, behold, all things have become new.” There is something new, right?
Best of all is that there is righteousness in the new birth. “And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Ephesians 4:24. Can Jesus, the righteous One, in a creative act make someone righteous? It doesn’t say a person evolves righteous. It doesn’t say that someday he will get better and better until he is righteous. Creation is not evolution. Creation is an instantaneous action. He spoke and there it was! Therefore, in the new man, the new birth, I am created in righteousness and true holiness. I do not get it by trying or wishing for it. I do not get it by praying for it. I get it by believing that He does it for me, that He has achieved it, and He wants to give it to me. He makes me righteous.
The same thoughts are found a little differently in Romans chapter 3 where it talks about declaring us righteous. God created all things by the word of His mouth. When God declares something by the words of His mouth, it is a creative act! He declares us righteous. He creates us righteous. And the new birth is a creative act. God is making new life. I am created in righteousness and true holiness. He does it for me as I believe it and expect it and anticipate it, and know that He wants to do it. It is not because of any goodness on my part. He made everything out of nothing and I am nothing. The Lord can make something out of nothing, but He does not make something out of something. It depreciates His creative ability to make something out of something. Then He is obligated or indebted to pre-existent matter. This is Pantheism. God is not indebted to you for righteousness or re-creation. It is all His power. It is a gift. He does it for you and for me. This takes place in this marvelous thing called conversion.
“When a man is converted to God, a new moral taste is created.” COR 101. “Holiness is the gift of God through Christ. Those who receive the Saviour become sons of God. They are His spiritual children, born again, renewed in righteousness and true holiness. Their minds are changed.” 6BC 1117.
Here is a quote that talks about what we are like as a result of being born of Adam: “Since we are sinful, unholy, we cannot perfectly obey the holy law. We have no righteousness of our own with which to meet the claims of the law of God. But Christ has made a way of escape for us. He lived on earth amid trials and temptations such as we have to meet. He lived a sinless life. He died for us, and now He offers to take our sins and give us His righteousness. If you give yourself to Him and accept Him as your Saviour, then, sinful as your life may have been, for His sake you are accounted righteous [the first part—the accounting]. Christ’s character stands in place of your character, and you are accepted before God just as if you had not sinned. More than this, Christ changes the heart.” SC 62. This changing of the heart is the other half. He accounts me righteous, He pardons me, but more than this, Christ changes the heart. He not only changes the books and the pages, He changes the heart. Something happens to me, and it is much more than good bookkeeping.
How does He do this? “He abides in your heart by faith. You are to maintain this connection with Christ by faith and the continual surrender of your will to Him; and so long as you do this, He will work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure…Then with Christ working in you, you will manifest the same spirit and do the same good works—works of righteousness, obedience. Our only ground of hope is in the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and in that wrought by His Spirit working in and through us.” SC 62,63. More than the accounting, more than the pardoning, He changes the heart. He functions inside of you as you receive Him by faith, as you respond to His love. As you love Him, He permeates your mind and takes control of you. You become obsessed with Him, and He possesses you. Then He operates His own good will and pleasure in you. His pleasure, of course, is to do His Father’s will, which is obedience to the law. This is what happens in the new birth, and it is a marvelous thing. We must never depreciate all that God offers us.
In the new birth we actually become partakers of the divine nature. God Himself comes to live in man. Immanuel means God with us. He did not cease to be Immanuel when He went back to heaven, for He sent His Spirit, who is also God, and who can be in every one of us. Jesus said His Spirit shall abide with you, and He shall be in you. The heavenly presence abides in us and we are changed. He works out His will inside of us as well as on the record books for us.
“Genuine faith appropriates the righteousness of Christ and the sinner is made an overcomer with Christ; for He is made a partaker of the divine nature and thus divinity and humanity are combined.” COR 96 “In the religion of Christ there is a regenerating influence that transforms the entire being, lifting man above every debasing, groveling vice, and raising the thoughts and desires toward God and heaven. Linked to the Infinite One, man is made a partaker of the divine nature…When the soul surrenders itself to Christ, a new power takes possession of the new heart. A change is wrought which man can never accomplish for himself. It is a supernatural work, bringing a supernatural element into human nature.” COR 99,100. Imagine combining divinity with humanity. This happens in the new covenant where God writes His law in our minds and hearts. Christ is the very personification of the law of God. He is God’s character perfectly lived out.
We have come back for the third time to this two-fold aspect of justification by faith—that it is both salvation and righteousness. Not only does He take care of records, He takes care of hearts and lives. He does both. The thing I like the best is that He takes care of the life. We are changed by Christ. I cannot change my life, but by faith in Him and His precious love and sacrifice for me, I may have a justified, a converted life that He will accomplish in me.
These questions are answered so nicely in this one quotation: “The atonement of Christ is not a mere skillful way to have our sins pardoned [in other words, God did not just scheme and devise how to get around the law and be just]. It is a divine remedy for the cure of transgression and the restoration of spiritual health. It is the heaven-ordained means by which the righteousness of Christ may be not only upon us but in our hearts and characters.” 6BC 1074.
In this marvelous experience of justification by faith, Christ comes into me. He does not just take care of some books somewhere. He does do this, but He also comes inside my heart and changes my very character. What happens when the mighty One gets inside of this poor, weak human being? Suddenly the weak say, “I am strong through Christ who strengthens me.” Suddenly the weak have become mighty. The Bible has many texts about the weak saying they are strong. God comes to abide in me and suddenly I do things that I never knew I could do. Christ is able to do that.
At the time of the new birth and justification, we are only babes in Christ. We are not mature Christians. After the new birth we must grow to maturity. There are many texts that state this. “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:13. “For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even to those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Hebrews 5:13,14. There is a growth that takes place after the new birth and after justification.
In this immature child of God, or babe in Christ, it will not be obvious or prominent that righteousness is there. It will not protrude, no more than the skills, talents, abilities and capabilities are obvious in a baby. The baby looks so helpless, so weak. But when you see that baby a few years later, a young fellow, husky and strong and 6 feet tall, talented and capable, you ask, “Where did he come from? I never anticipated all this from that little package.” But in that little package were all the potentials, right? The whole thing was there. God did not add new things. There was learning, there was experience, there was growth and development; but the package was there. And that package is Christ in me the hope of glory. The righteousness was there. As you grow and mature, that righteousness becomes obvious. Your neighbors begin to see it; your family begins to see it. It becomes prominent, until finally you have grown to the fullness of the stature of Christ. We shall be like Him, John teaches.
Righteousness by faith, or justification, is a seed experience. Christ and His righteousness are planted in my heart when I am born again—born of the Seed of the word, born of the Spirit. He comes to live in my heart and He is both the Seed and the Gardener. He watches over the seed and makes sure it germinates. He watches that tender little plant when it is so vulnerable in its babyhood. He gives it just the right food, the right amount of sunshine and the rain that it might grow; and as it grows He tends it, He cares for it, He plans for it. He is always the divine Gardener watching over His plants and making sure they will grow up.
What do I do? Every morning I say, “Lord I am not righteous, and I cannot be righteous; but You are the mighty One, you are the righteous One. I submit my whole life to you. Take care of me today. Guide me today. Plan for me today. Control me today. Use me today.” And little by little His righteousness begins to flourish as I submit and give Him all the controls of my life. And that plant grows and grows and grows. Soon the neighbors ask, “How did you get that way?” And I can say, “ I really don’t know too much about it. Somebody else was doing it for me.” Isn’t that true? Someone else does it for us. If people say, “You really are a righteous person,” you will say, “Me? I haven’t seen it.” For in our humility and self-distrust we do not notice that we are righteous.
The book The Great Controversy talks about this at length. We never brag of what we are like. We only say, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.” And as we yield to the mighty One, He works mighty works in the weak one; and the world marvels and takes knowledge that we have been with Jesus. Does this mean we become more righteous as we grow? Does it mean I am more perfect? More mature, yes, but more perfect? All the righteousness I have when I am a born-again Christian in my babyhood is all of Jesus. When I have lived fifty or sixty years, all by His grace, all the righteousness I have then is all of Jesus. All my works have been wrought by Him; and whether you take me as an infant in Christ or as a mature Christian in Christ, the righteousness in me is all of Christ; and we will say, “The Lord our righteousness!” All our righteousness is of Him. I have all of Him in the beginning and I have all of Him in the end. I might not know all about Him in the beginning. I might not have reached out and claimed all of His righteousness. But the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him completely, and when He has come to live in me, it is all there. I might have to learn much more about Him. Over time, I will learn to love Him much more and trust Him much more and distrust self more. But the fullness of the righteousness of Christ abides in me from the day I am born again as a Christian.
This is a marvelous experience. It really is. What God wants to do for us is not to just take care of pages of books, even marvelous heavenly pages, for He is an accurate bookkeeper. He also wants to take care of hearts. What does He write down in those books? He writes: “This is My adopted child who is forgiven and righteous. I know because I am making him that way. This is a just thing to do because Christ died and was resurrected for his sins.”
There are two texts that uniquely describe this. “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” 1 Corinthians 1:30. You are in Christ who was made unto us righteousness. As you hide in Christ, and He in you, He becomes your righteousness. Also, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height [of God’s love]; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19. You literally take root in love, and that heavenly plant of the law is righteousness; therefore, love is righteousness. You are being rooted and grounded in love when Christ lives in you.
You see, friend, justification by faith is a marvelous, intimate love affair. He comes down and becomes intimate with the human family, and new children are born in that intimacy—children of God. And as I respond to His love, I say, “O Lord, take possession of me, live in me, fill my mind, possess me, control me, be my Lord and Master, consume me, fill me with the fullness of God.” And as He does that, lo and behold you will see in me, the sinner, the Lord my righteousness.
May God grant you this glorious experience. He has been waiting for years and years to give it to every person. He wants us to become missionaries to go out and offer this to everyone and convince them that God wants to do it for them. And the world will stand amazed as they look at us, and they will ask, “Isn’t this man from a sinful place? Didn’t he use to be a terrible and proud person? Why is He so righteous? How did He get that way?” And God will be praised as they see the righteousness of Christ perfectly reproduced in us. What a glorious experience is ours. Let us claim it today.