Some readers have requested a glossary listing some unusual terms:
ad infinitum: on and on, to infinity.
affaire de coeur: an exciting love affair.
atonement: literally, at-one-with; the sacrifice of Christ accomplishes for us a reconciliation with God.
corporate: the adjective which describes the relationship of the individual members of the body to the head and to each other; how individuals relate to the entire body of the human race.
desolidarized: a term used by the Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen to describe the separation of the Virgin Mary from the sinful genetic inheritance of the human race.
ego: the emphatic Greek word for I. Thus, egocentric means self-centered.
forensic: legal. Thus, a forensic justification is understood generally as merely a legal pronouncement, where justification by faith is experiential, involving a change of heart.
justification: a legal term—the making right of something that was wrong, putting right, making straight what was crooked, vindicating the right. Christ's sacrifice effects for the entire human race a legal justification.
justification by faith: the sinner's believing or appreciating what Christ has accomplished; thus it involves a change of heart, a heart-reconciliation with God and His righteousness.
laissez-faire: an attitude of unconcern; French for "do as they please."
New Testament message: this term is not intended to cast discredit on the message of the Old Testament, which is as moonlight compared to the sunlight of the New Testament (see Revelation 12:1). The Old Testament is the gospel in figures and symbols; the New Testament is the gospel in substance, "the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
righteousness: being right, doing right; the opposite of wrong-ness. The term "Christ's righteousness" describes the reality of His victory over temptations to sin in our human flesh.
sanctification: the life-long obedience to God's law rendered by the person who is justified by faith.
volitional: involving personal choice or the exercise of the will.