Lessons #177 and 178
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Settlement of disputes among believers (1 Cor 6:1-11)
... 9Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
We ended our last study while we were considering a second gracious act of God that changed the status of the Corinthians and so of all believers from being unbelievers to being believers which is that God had dedicated them to Himself because of the sentence of 1 Corinthians 6:11 you were sanctified. We also noted the truth that God dedicated us to Himself means He has included us in His family. Consequently, it would be wrong for believers to wrong each other. Furthermore, we said there is more to the truth that we have been sanctified, that is, that we have been dedicated to God, but we ran out of time with the promise that we will continue with the implications of the truth in our present study.
God dedicating us to Himself has a purpose that involves serving Him. This purpose may even be noted from the consecration of the priests in the OT Scripture that was so they could serve God, as stated in Exodus 28:41:
After you put these clothes on your brother Aaron and his sons, anoint and ordain them. Consecrate them so they may serve me as priests.
Anyway, the purpose of God dedicating us to Himself is so we can serve Him and praise Him. This purpose is conveyed in God’s purpose in election, as stated in Ephesians 1:11–12:
11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.
It is true that the context of this passage in Ephesians is election but election is related to being sanctified in the sense of God having dedicated us to Himself since there is a connection between being sanctified and being chosen for salvation, as implied in 2 Thessalonians 2:13:
But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.
This being the case, a purpose of election and so of being dedicated to God is that of praising or bringing Him glory as implied in the verbal phrase of Ephesians 1:12 might be for the praise of his glory. Hence, anyone who understands that God has dedicated that individual to Himself should strive for God’s glory or character to be revealed through that individual in keeping with our Lord’s declaration in the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in Matthew 5:16:
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
The point is that our being sanctified by God has a purpose of serving Him by reflecting His character to the world of unbelievers. That God’s dedication of believers to Himself has a purpose leads to two important implications.
A first implication of God dedicating believers to Himself is that we belong to Him which is similar to the fact we considered in our last study of being in His family. The concept of a people belonging to God was conveyed first to Israel in that the Lord indicated to them that if they obeyed the terms of His covenant with them, they would be His “treasured possession” according to the promise recorded in Exodus 19:5:
Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine.
The same concept of those God has dedicated to Himself belonging to Him is conveyed through the pen of Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2:9:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
The chosen people of God are the elect of God, those that have been sanctified by God the Holy Spirit who also lives in the believer. For only those that the Holy Spirit has set apart and lives in that belong to God. We are saying that unless a person belongs to Christ through faith in Him that individual cannot belong to God since only those with the Holy Spirit living in them belong to Christ, as we learn from Romans 8:9:
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
It is a great privilege to belong to God for that brings the one who belongs to Him under His protective care as was the case with Israel, as we read in Deuteronomy 32:10:
In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him;
he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
This passage refers to God’s protective care of Israel that belong to Him. God protected Israel in the desert because they were His people, precious to Him. You see, the phrase the apple of his eye is an idiom for what is most precious that must be carefully protected, so it speaks to Israel’s worth to God. Hence, if you belong to God, you are under His special protective care. Anyway, the first implication that God dedicated us to Himself is that we belong to Him.
A second implication is that we are to reflect in our experiences that we belong to God. This means that we are to function and behave as those who belong to the family of God in Christ. This requirement is expressed differently by the Holy Spirit through the human authors of the Scripture. The Holy Spirit puts this requirement through Apostle Paul in the form of imitating God, as in the command of Ephesians 5:1–2:
1 Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
The same requirement is given by the Holy Spirit through Apostle Peter in terms of being holy, as we read in 1 Peter 1:15–16:
15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
These two passages are saying the same thing because to imitate God is to copy His divine attributes, especially those that pertain to God dealing with humans. His moral attributes of righteousness and faithfulness are among those we are to copy for it to be said that we are holy as He is. God is dedicated to His character, so to say, and so if we are to be considered sanctified in our experience we should be dedicated to God in our devotion and conduct.
How can a believer become sanctified in the sense of being dedicated to God in the individual’s experience? Well, we know that to copy someone involves first observing the person to be copied so we can learn what is to be copied. This being the case, the first thing required for a believer being sanctified experientially is to learn the word of God. The word of God is a means of being sanctified as indicated in the priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus in John 17:17:
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Jesus’ priestly prayer indicates that being sanctified, that is, dedicated to God is through God’s word which is true. If this is the situation, then we should recognize that it is through meditating on the word of God that in our experience, we would be dedicated to God. It is therefore not surprising that the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul demands that we saturate our souls with God’s word, as that is implied in the instruction of Colossians 3:16:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
Learning the word of God is not an end to itself but a step towards being dedicated and devoted to God in our conduct or what is described as “experiential sanctification.” Once we learn the word of God, we should under the enabling power of the Holy Spirit strive to exhibit the virtues delineated in God’s word as, for example, in 1 Timothy 6:11–12:
11 But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
This striving to live out the truth we learn from God’s word requires that we remain prayerful as we interact with people so that we would remain true to the word of God. It is this requirement of being prayerful when it comes to living the life of Christ that is implied in Jude 20:
But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.
Praying in the Holy Spirit requires that we be free from sin but we know that it is impossible to be without sin on a continuous basis because we still have our sinful nature. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of our spiritual conditions constantly. This means that we need to monitor our thoughts and actions so that when we detect anything that is contrary to truth then we obey God’s word to confess our sins that will lead to cleansing us from our sins, as indicated in 1 John 1:9:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Consequently, an important action that we should take in order to remain sanctified or dedicated to God experentially is constant confession of our sins. The point then is that in order to be sanctified, we must study God’s word and put what we study in practice by relying on the Holy Spirit. We are to be prayerful as that is how we ask for God to enable us to carry out His word. Since our spiritual warfare involves dealing with sin, then we should be careful to ensure that we are constantly confessing our sins which is also part of being prayerful. If we follow these actions, then we will be sanctified or dedicated to God in our experience. In any event, a second gracious act of God that changed the status of the Corinthians, and so of all believers, from being unbelievers to being believers is God has dedicated them to Himself. So, we proceed to consider the third.
A third gracious act of God that changed the status of the Corinthians, and so of all believers, from being unbelievers to being believers is God putting them in right relationship with Him. It is this act of God that is stated in the sentence of 1 Corinthians 6:11 you were justified. To understand that this sentence is concerned with putting believers in the right relationship with God, we need to consider the Greek word translated “justified.”
The word “justified” is translated from a Greek word (dikaioō) that, according to experts, is a legal term that describes the condition of a person who has been declared innocent of the charges brought against him in the court of law. It is used in the Septuagint with the meaning of “to do justice, take up a cause.” It is in the sense of “to do justice” that the word is used in Psalm 82:3:
Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.
The expression maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed in the Septuagint reads do justice to the low and needy. It is in the sense of “to take up the cause of someone” that the Greek word is used in the Septuagint of Isaiah 1:17:
learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
The instruction plead the case of the widow in the Septuagint may be translated take up the cause of the widow. In the NT, the word may mean “to vindicate, justify, treat as just.” It is in the sense of self-justification that the word is used to describe the attempted response of the teacher of the law who listened to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29:
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Under this meaning, it is used of God in the sense of “to be found in the right, be free of charges” so that it is used with the meaning “to be acquitted, be pronounced and treated as righteous,” as in Romans 3:20:
Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
Here in Romans 3:20, the word is used in the sense of being put right with God or justification. The word may mean “to prove to be right” as in Romans 3:4:
Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.”
The expression Let God be true may be translated let God be proven true or God is proved to be right. The word may mean to cause someone to be released from personal or institutional claims that are no longer to be considered pertinent or valid, hence means “to make free/pure” as the word is used in Romans 6:7:
because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
It is in the same sense of “to make free/pure” that the word is used in Acts 13:39:
Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.
It is true that the NIV and many of our English versions used the word “justified” here in Acts 13:39 but the context of forgiveness of sins imply that the Greek verb is better understood to mean “to set free” so that Apostle Paul intended to convey that the Law of Moses could not set a person free from any sin in terms of guilt due to sin but faith in Christ sets a person free from all sins. Anyway, in our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:11, it has the sense of “to make free/pure” although most of our English versions used the meaning “to be justified,” that is, “to be or become judicially vindicated as having complied with the requirements of the law (of God).” This meaning is certainly true but because the apostle was concerned with the status of believers in this passage, it may be more communicative if we give the Greek verb the meaning “to be put right with God” as in the TEV. Of course, the meaning “to justify” is one that is more common to most believers because that is the word that is often understood in the doctrine of justification. Our mention of the doctrine of justification requires that we briefly consider it but before we do, we should consider what the Holy Spirit says through the apostle regarding the gracious acts of God that we have considered that changed the status of a person from being an unbeliever to being a believer.
Apostle Paul conveyed to us that the three gracious acts of God that we have considered are the work of the Godhead, that is, the three persons of the Godhead although he mentioned specifically the two members of the Godhead in the last phrase of 1 Corinthians 6:11 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. On a surface reading, there is the problem of whether this last phrase is associated with all three actions or simply the last action given in the word justified. It is our interpretation that the phrase is linked to the three actions of washed, sanctified, and justified. This is because there is no other passage in the Scripture where justification is described either as the sole work of the Lord Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. Instead, we have justification given as the work of God without making any distinction of the member of the Godhead involved. Hence, the apostle states severally that God is the One that justifies as, for example, in Romans 8:33:
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.
Thus, the apostle did not only link the act of justification to the two members of the Godhead mentioned in the phrase in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God but to all three actions of “washed”, “sanctified,” and “justified.”
In any case, it is our assertion that in the last phrase of 1 Corinthians 6:11 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God the Holy Spirit through the apostle conveys to us that all gracious acts of God we considered were by the Godhead with specific reference to two members of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We can recognize the truthfulness of this assertion in several ways. First, the three actions we have considered are clearly stated as the work of God although in two of these a member of the Godhead is not directly mentioned. Take the action described in the word washed that refers to forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sins is described as the work of God without distinction to the person of the Godhead, as we read in Ephesians 4:32:
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
The Lord Jesus is specifically mentioned as involved in the gracious work of forgiveness of our sins in Colossians 3:13:
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Here the phrase the Lord refers to the Lord Jesus as the One who forgave our sins. It is true that the word Jesus is not used here but whenever Apostle Paul used the word “Lord” not as a part of quotation from the OT Scripture, he usually refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. Besides, the Lord Jesus while on earth claimed the prerogative of forgiveness of sins, as recorded in Matthew 9:6:
But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”
It is not only the person of Jesus Christ, as member of the Godhead, that is associated with forgiveness of sins so is God the Father, as implied in Matthew 6:15:
But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Hence, we have two members of the Godhead specifically associated with forgiveness of sins but that does not mean the Holy Spirit is not involved for He is. Another of the three gracious actions of God we considered is sanctification. This is clearly stated to be the work of God without any distinction of the persons of the Godhead involved, as we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:23:
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This prayer of Apostle Pau recognizes that God is responsible for the work of sanctification. But then there is no specific reference of God the Father as being involved with our sanctification which He is certainly involved. We have a reference to the Holy Spirit involved in our sanctification, as stated in Romans 15:16:
to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
Likewise, Apostle Paul states that Jesus Christ sanctified the church although the Greek word translated “sanctified” in 1 Corinthians 6:11 is rendered “make holy” in Ephesians 5:25–26:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,
Second, we recognize that in the phrase of 1 Corinthians 6: 11 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God the Holy Spirit through the apostle conveys to us that all gracious acts of God we considered were by the Godhead with specific reference to two members of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit because of the Greek preposition used. The Greek preposition (en) used in our passage is translated “in” and “by” in our phrase. It seems to me that the preposition should be translated “by” in its two occurrences. This is because such interpretation provides us the agents of the gracious actions we have considered. We have the passive voice in the Greek of the words “sanctified” and “justified” so there is need to reference the agent responsible for the actions. Thus, it makes sense that the apostle was thinking of the two members of the Godhead as agents that accomplished the actions stated in our passage.
Third, we recognize that in the phrase of 1 Corinthians 6: 11 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God the Holy Spirit through the apostle conveys to us that all gracious acts of God we considered were by the Godhead with specific reference to two members of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, because of a specific word and grammatical construction the apostle used to indicate that the Spirit is God in the phrase in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The specific word is “name.” This is translated from a Greek word (onoma) that can refer to the proper name of a person, that is, the distinctive designation of a person or an object. However, it has other meanings. For example, it may mean “authority” as that is the sense of the word when Peter healed a crippled man by referencing Jesus’ authority in Acts 3:6:
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
The word may mean “person” as that is the sense in which the word is used in Acts 18:15:
But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.”
The standard Greek English lexicon of BDAG suggest that the phrase about words and names and your own law could be translated about teaching and persons and (the) law indicating that our Greek word may mean “person.” It is in the sense of person that the word is used in our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:11 so that the apostle intended to convey that the actions of washing, sanctifying and justifying involve the person of Jesus Christ.
It is not only the person of Jesus Christ that is involved in these actions but also God the Holy Spirit as in the phrase and by the Spirit of our God. The Greek syntax involved the use of the genitive that in this phrase implies that the Spirit is God so that we can even translated the phrase by the Spirit of our God as “by our God the Holy Spirit.” This is because the genitive “of God” used in the Greek may be classified as what the authorities refer as “qualitative genitive” in which the genitive is used to express a quality or internal characteristic of the main noun. We find this Greek usage by the apostle in Philippians 3:21:
who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
In this passage the main noun is “body” and the genitive is associated with the word “glory” since the phrase his glorious body is literally the body of his glory. The rendering of the NIV recognized that the word “glory” in the literal translation qualifies the word “body” hence their translation. In our passage of 1 Corinthians 6:11, the main noun is “Spirit” and the genitive “of God” is used to tell us something about the Spirit which is that He is God. This being the case, the apostle’s intention is to convey that the person of God the Holy Spirit is involved in the three actions we have considered. By the way, the apostle probably used the phrase of 1 Corinthians 6:11 in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God that we have considered, to make the point that Jesus Christ is God as the Holy Spirit is. Therefore, the three actions we considered should be recognized as the work of the triune God. With this interpretation of the phrase, we return to consider briefly the doctrine of justification. We are only dealing with the subject briefly because we have considered the subject in detail in our study of Galatians. If you want the detailed treatment of the subject, I refer you to lessons 19 to 23 of Galatians on the church’s website.
What is justification? It is a judicial act of God in which on the basis of the sufficiency of Christ atoning death He declares that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner. The definition we have given reveals that justification is a matter of declaring a person righteous as a judge does when he acquits an accused. Furthermore, this definition reveals why the simple definition of justification as ‘just –as- if I have never sinned’ is misleading since it contains half the truth of the concept of justification. God does not in reality consider the believer as if he has never sinned for that would be misleading. God recognizes the fact that the believer has sinned but declares him righteous anyway based on Christ’s work. Justification is concerned with a person’s relationship to God’s law. Hence, a person can be in the right relationship with God’s law, that is, become righteous in one of two ways. First, a person can become righteous if he never violated any of God’s law in which sense the person would be righteous and innocent having totally fulfilled the law. A second way to be righteous is for the prescribed penalty of violating the law to be paid. Then on the account that the penalty has been paid the offender can be declared free. All we have said regarding justification simply put in today’s English is that it is the act of God that involves putting someone in a right relationship with Himself. This takes place only by faith in Christ as will be evident in a passage we will cite shortly in Galatians.
Why is justification a necessary act of God on behalf of humans? It is primarily due to the fall of man into sin that then puts his status with God in an unattainable position because of God’s character. God is righteous and loves justice as the psalmist states in Psalm 11:7:
For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face.
God’s character demands that He deals with humans in accordance with His justice since His rule involves justice as indicated in Psalm 9:8:
He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice.
If God should deal with anyone in accordance with His justice, then for a person to have anything to do with Him that individual must be righteous. This is impossible regarding humans because of the Fall that created two fundamental problems for mankind. First, sin corrupted man’s basic nature, polluting his moral character. It is because man’s basic nature is corrupt that God gave the promise of creating a new heart for man, according to Ezekiel 36:26:
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
It is for the same basic corruption of the human nature that Jesus Christ taught that man must be born again to receive eternal life. Hence, this basic corruption of man through sin is taken care of through regeneration (or new birth) as Apostle Peter alludes in 1 Peter 1:3:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
A second problem is that because of disobedience to God’s law man became guilty (or liable to punishment) before God and there is nothing he could do to regain good standing with God as that is what the Holy Spirit implies in what Apostle Paul communicated in Galatians 2:15–16:
15 “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
Thus, the character of God and man’s sinful condition along with his helplessness to do anything that would give him a good standing with God necessitate God’s work in justification. This work is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There are certain characteristics of justification that we should understand to help us understand this work of God. First, it is purely a legal or judicial act of God in which He declares a sinner righteous before Him. God in declaring the sinner righteous is not being deceptive, nor is justification a fictional act on His part. In effect, God does not pretend that the believer has not sinned. Instead, the reality is that because the sinner is in Christ God sees Christ before He sees the believer and so He sees the sinner in Christ through the lens of Christ, so to say. The believer in union with Christ shares everything that belongs to Christ just as Christ in identifying Himself with man paid the penalty for man’s sins. Christ was never a sinner but because He took on human form it was easy for our sins to be imputed to Him on the cross so that He was judged for them. It is the imputation of our sins on Him that Apostle Paul described in 2 Corinthians 5:21:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The judicial imputation of our sins on Christ resulted in His atoning work on the cross so it follows that imputation of righteousness could come to the believer in a judicial manner.
Second, because justification is a judicial act it affects a sinner’s state with God and not his inner condition. Hence, justification certainly includes forgiveness of sins of the believer and restoration into favor with God. The point is that justification deals with man’s standing before God in relationship to His righteous demands. The inner condition of man is, as we have mentioned, dealt with in regeneration
Third, justification establishes peace between the believer and God. This is the assertion of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul in Romans 5:1:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
An individual who understands that justification is an act of God whereby a person is declared righteous that in of itself should bring a sense of peace and relief that works could not produce in the individual. If a person is worried sick about his many failures or sins, to hear that God could declare him righteous if he trusts Christ is bound to be a greater relief of the soul than to tell the person to do something to earn favor with God. If you do not have the peace that comes from understanding that God has declared you righteous in spite of all your past sins, present or future sins then you have not understood the implication of the doctrine of justification. It seems to me that if anyone understands the issue of justification that the individual should be overwhelmed with a sense of relief and awe of a God who can find a way to declare a person righteous without compromising His holy character.
Be that as it may, there are two general elements of justification given negatively and positively that should help in understanding the doctrine of justification, which is a one-time act of God at the point of salvation. The negative element of justification consists of remission of sins and remission of punishment. The positive element of justification consists of restoration to favor with God. Let us first consider briefly the negative element of remission of sins and punishment. Remission of sins, that is, forgiveness of sins is mentioned in Acts 13:38-39:
38 "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.
The remission of punishment is presented in terms of being rescued from the wrath of God in Romans 5:9:
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!
We have briefly touched on the negative element of justification, so we consider the positive elements beginning with restoration to favor with God. This restoration into favor is based primarily on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the one justified. Those who deny the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer (such as the Arminians) deny also this restoration to favor. Instead, they teach that justification leaves man without any claim to eternal life but simply places him in the position of Adam before the fall, though according to them, under a different law, the law of evangelical obedience. So they teach that man is left to merit acceptance with God and eternal life by faith and obedience. But it is clear from the Bible that justification involves more than forgiveness of sins, as we have already demonstrated. Justification implies other things such as peace with God as we previously mentioned, and glorification, according to Romans 8:30:
And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
However, our concern here is to demonstrate that justification involves the positive element of restoration.
Another positive element of justification is adoption as God’s children which is the transfer from a status of alienation and hostility to one of acceptance and favor. There are several passages in the NT that refer to the adoption of believers as sons of God but let me cite one such passage in Ephesians 1:5:
he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.
The fact that believers are adopted sons of God has several implications. First, it implies that our status before God has changed as the Holy Spirit conveyed through Apostle Paul in Galatians 4:7:
So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
The apostle indicates we are no longer slaves because of adoption. The implication, of course, is that we do not live in fear as a slave lives with respect to his master. Instead, we are in a loving relationship with our heavenly Father. Our motivation for serving and honoring God is not fear but love because our status has been changed. Because we do not live in fear, we enjoy liberty in Christ. However, it is important to remember that liberty in Christ is not in any sense license to sin as the apostle cautioned in Galatians 5:13:
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
Second, unlike the legal adoption that may not involve any previous relationship between the adopted child and adopting parents, the adoption of believers involves restoration to favor or their actual relationship with God. Third, adoption gives certain rights and privileges to believers because we belong to the family of God in Christ. We have right to eternal life because we are God’s adopted children. As adopted children of God we have the Holy Spirit as the apostle asserts in Galatians 4:6:
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
We have inheritance with God because we are adopted sons. The possession of inheritance is implied in Acts 20:32:
"Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.
There is more to our adoption that we will not discuss here but we should remind you that our adoption is a declarative act of God that does not change our inner person. We know that when a family adopts a child that does not mean an inner change in the child in his relationship with the adopted family. Of course, through training the adopted child could acquire the adopting family’s values. In the same manner, as adopted children of God we are not changed in our nature or morally because of adoption. These are taken care of through regeneration and sanctification. It is true that we separate regeneration and adoption logically but in God’s dealing with us both are inseparable. Recall that in legal adoption, among the Greeks, not every child that lives in Greece who is available for adoption can be adopted, only children of certain descent. In other words, a person must be qualified before he can be adopted. In the same way, God could not adopt us as children unless we are eligible for adoption. The eligibility for adoption is achieved through regeneration. Logically, we could say that regeneration took place first before adoption, again, we cannot separate these works of God. The fact that regeneration, which makes us eligible for adoption, is inseparable from adoption in God’s work is implied in John 1:12–13:
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
The fact of adoption is stated in sentence of verse 12; he gave the right to become children of God. While the fact of regeneration is given in verse 13: children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. In any event, the doctrine of justification is one that should give us assurance of forgiveness of sins and good standing with God eternally, but it should also motivate us to live righteously so that we maintain good standing at all times with God while on this planet.
11/01/19