Justification | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 6, 1869

Justification.

How shall man be just with God? Or to speak still more definitely, how shall a sinner become just in God's sight? There is but one answer that can be returned to this. This is clearly the case of that class who are justified by faith without works. But how shall the man who is thus justified maintain his justification before God? By faith which produces good works. His justification is, therefore, maintained, as James insists, by faith and works. Paul describes the justification of the sinner as accomplished by faith only; and James that of the Christian bringing forth good works as the fruit of faith.

The gospel undertakes to create in men the righteous character which the law demands. When the gospel has finished its work it steps out, and all men pass into the hands of the law. Then the cases of all are examined to see if they are just in God's sight.

Now a second justification becomes necessary. If men are now what God's law demands, they are pronounced just; if they are not, they are condemned. Men are justified, therefore, in the Judgment by virtue of what they really are.

It is thus that the doers of the law are to be justified. God will save in his kingdom simply those who are just what his law demands that they should be. How great, then, the preparation for the Judgment.