Justification - An Assurance Policy

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5 ESV)

I believe that it was C.F.W. Walther who said that “it is not an easy matter correctly to present the doctrine of justification.” And even harder, in my opinion, is the role of faith in the sinner’s salvation, or, to frame it another way, if Christ died for the sins of the world, why is faith necessary? What, exactly, do Lutherans mean by “We are saved by Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone”? I had (please pardon the expression) a devil of a time trying to teach this concept to Russians, still under the yoke of Orthodox tradition, while engaged in Russian-language outreach ministry some years back.

Lutherans understand two types of justification-- objective and subjective. The need for justification is based on Original Sin and Man’s standing before God as sinful and deserving of eternal damnation; because of Adam’s transgression, all of humankind is tainted. (AC Art. II).

Out of His love for us God imputed all of our sins to Christ, Whom He sacrificed to bear the fullness of divine wrath on the Cross to satisfy the Law in our place-- we are redeemed and forgiven through Christ’s atonement. This is objective justification, by which all sinners are justified-- reconciled or “made right”-- by God (that is, pronounced righteous by Him). AC Apology Art. IV states that “men by their own strength cannot fulfill the Law of God, and all are under sin, and subject to eternal wrath and death, on this account we cannot be freed by the Law from sin and be justified, but the promise of the remission of sins and of justification has been given us for Christ's sake, who was given for us in order that He might make satisfaction for the sins of the world.”

Subjective justification occurs when God appropriates the objective justification granted to the entire world in Christ to the individual sinner through faith. I have often heard it described this way: Faith is a “hand” in which the individual receives the objective justification won by Christ on the cross. SD Art. III states that “faith justifies, not for this cause and reason that it is so good a work and so fair a virtue, but because it lays hold of and accepts the merit of Christ in the promise of the holy Gospel; for this must be applied and appropriated to us by faith, if we are to be justified thereby.”

Faith-- our faith-- has absolutely nothing to do with Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross for our forgiveness, as we are justified objectively by God’s Grace and Christ’s obedience alone. It has been said that faith, however, is where objective and subjective justification meet. It is the open “hand” of that faith, itself a gift of God delivered through the Holy Spirit, which receives the promises of the Gospel. Without objective justification, the “hand” of faith receives nothing. It is this same faith that assures the sinner of God’s forgiveness and grace for Christ’s sake that reaches out in the Sacraments. AC Apology Art.13 reads “Therefore Baptism, the Lord's Supper, and Absolution, which is the Sacrament of Repentance, are truly Sacraments. For these rites have God's command and the promise of grace, which is peculiar to the New Testament. For when we are baptized, when we eat the Lord's body, when we are absolved, our hearts must be firmly assured that God truly forgives us for Christ's sake. And God, at the same time, by the Word and by the rite, moves hearts to believe and conceive faith, just as Paul says, Rom. 10:17: Faith cometh by hearing. But just as the Word enters the ear in order to strike our heart, so the rite itself strikes the eye, in order to move the heart. The effect of the Word and of the rite is the same, as it has been well said by Augustine that a Sacrament is a visible word, because the rite is received by the eyes, and is, as it were, a picture of the Word, signifying the same thing as the Word.”

During my Russian language ministry, it was a challenge to try and convince practically every person I came in contact with that God comes to us, rather than the other way around.  In a works-oriented culture, with regard to faith and the need to seek God’s approval, such as the Russian-speaking community I ministered to, Christ’s crucifixion is only part of God’s plan for our salvation-- we still have to do our part. I can recall one Bible study conversation in which I was sure I would lose the battle because of the words “justification” and “righteousness” (in a Romans reading, no doubt, probably 5:18-19), which have literal translations into Russian.

It’s sometimes all too easy to get bogged down in the details. The Lutheran doctrine of justification is an assurance policy (rather than an insurance policy, which would seem awfully proprietary), that’s really no more Lutheran than God Himself is. In any ministry aspect, in any language, justification is God’s gift of our assurance that because of-- and only because of-- Jesus Christ can we be worthy of salvation. That gift is accepted (throat clear here), appropriated through faith. How comforting (albeit incredibly hard to comprehend) are the promises of God’s love-- forgiveness of sins, new life in Jesus Christ, adoption into God’s family, eternal life-- to the sinner of any account, no strings attached! And how comforting, too, is God’s gracious gift of faith!

Paragraphs 71-72 of AC Apology Art. IV speak quite nicely to the role of faith in God’s the justification of the sinner [my boldfacing]: “But when it is said that faith justifies, some perhaps understand it of the beginning, namely, that faith is the beginning of justification or preparation for justification, so that not faith itself is that through which we are accepted by God, but the works which follow; and they dream, accordingly, that faith is highly praised, because it is the beginning. For great is the importance of the beginning, as they commonly say, The beginning is half of everything; just as if one would say that grammar makes the teachers of all arts, because it prepares for other arts, although in fact it is his own art that renders every one an artist. We do not believe thus concerning faith, but we maintain this, that properly and truly, by faith itself, we are for Christ's sake accounted righteous, or are acceptable to God. And because "to be justified" means that out of unjust men just men are made, or born again, it means also that they are pronounced or accounted just. For Scripture speaks in both ways. [The term ‘to be justified’ is used in two ways: to denote, being converted or regenerated; again, being accounted righteous.] Accordingly we wish first to show this, that faith alone makes of an unjust, a just man, i.e., receives remission of sins.”

To say that the boldfaced statement above defines justification is a bit of a stretch, yet it’s somewhat more easily digestible when reaching out in ministry. And it helps the unindoctrinated to better grasp the concept of “Grace alone through Faith alone in Christ alone” as an assurance of salvation.