Justification

John Owen (1616-1683)

1. If the sinner want nothing to acceptation and peace but a manifestation of God’s eternal love, then evangelical justification is nothing but an apprehension of God’s eternal decree and purpose. But this cannot be made out from the Scripture,–namely, that God’s justifying of a person is his making known unto him his decree of election; or [that] man’s justification [is] an apprehension of that decree, purpose, or love. Where is any such thing in the book of God? It is true, there is a discovery thereof made to justified believers, and therefore it is attainable by the saints, “God shedding abroad his love in their hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto them,” Rom. 5:5; but it is after they are “justified by faith,” and have “peace with God,” verse 1. Believers are to give “all diligence to make their calling and election sure;” but that justification should consist herein is a strange notion. Justification, in the Scripture, is an act of God, pronouncing an ungodly person, upon his believing, to be absolved from the guilt of sin, and interested in the all-sufficient righteousness of Christ: so God “justifieth the ungodly,” Rom. 4:5, “by the righteousness of God which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto them,” chap. 3:22; making Christ to become righteousness to them who were in themselves sin. But of this manifestation of eternal love there is not the least foundation, as to be the form of justification; which yet is not without sense and perception of the love of God, in the improvement thereof.

2. The Scripture is exceeding clear in making all men, before actual reconciliation, to be in the like state and condition, without any real difference at all, the Lord reserving to himself his distinguishing purpose of the alteration he will afterward by his free grace effect: “There is none that doeth good, no, not one,” Rom. 3:12; for “we have proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin,” verse 9. All mankind are in the same condition, in respect of themselves and their own real state: which truth is not at all prejudiced by the relation they are in to the eternal decrees; for “every mouth is stopped, and all the world is become guilty before God,” Rom. 3:19, hupodikos, obnoxious to his judgment. “Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast that thou didst not receive?” 1 Cor. 4:7. All distinguishment, in respect of state and condition, is by God’s actual grace; for even believers are “by nature children of wrath, even as others,” Eph. 2:3. The condition, then, of all men, during their unregeneracy, is one and the same, the purpose of God concerning the difference that shall be being referred to himself. Now, I ask whether reprobates in that condition lie under the effects of God’s wrath, or not? If ye say, “No,” who will believe you? If so, why not the elect also? The same condition hath the same qualifications; an actual distinguishment we have proved there is not. Produce some difference that hath a real existence, or the cause is lost.

(From: “Works” )

Francis Turretin (1623-1687)

Was justification made from eternity or is it made in time? Is it an undivided act taking place at one and the same time?

I. The opinions of theologians about this question vary. Some maintain that it is an immanent act in God which was performed from eternity; others that it is transient, terminating in us and which takes place only in time and in this life. And there are some who hold that it is postponed to the last and decretory day, in which all must stand before the solemn and public tribunal of Christ to hear the sentence of absolution or of condemnation from his lips. No although there is an agreement on both sides in the substance of the thing and a disagreement only in the mode of the thing, still it is of no little importance to the accurate knowledge of the subject to know what is the true opinion to be held here.

II. The first opinion is that of those who hold that justification preceded our birth and was made in eternity because they conceive it to be an immanent and internal act in God. However, as nothing new can happen to God in time, they think it was made in him from eternity and is ascribed to faith only as to cognizance and sense because it leads us into the knowledge of him and makes us certain of it.

III. But although we do not deny that our justification was decreed even from eternity (as nothing takes place in time which was not constituted by him from eternity), still we do not think (speaking accurately) justification itself can be called eternal. The decree of justification is one thing; justification itself another–as the will to save and sanctify is one thing; salvation and sanctification itself another. The will or decree to justify certain persons is indeed eternal and precedes faith itself, but actual justification takes place in time and follows faith.

IV. Second, Paul expressly confirms this in the chain of salvation, enumerating in order the benefits flowing to the elect from the eternal love of God where he puts calling before justification as something antecedent: “Whom he called, them he justified” (Rom. 8:30). Nor have those various passages a different meaning in which we are said to be justified through and by faith, than that faith is a something prerequisite to justification. This could not be said if justification was done from eternity. For it is weak and foreign to the meaning of Paul to refer these things to the sense of justification only.

V. Third, the nature of the thing itself proves this. For since justification or remission of sins necessarily involves a deliverance from the obligation to punishment which sins deserved and no one can obtain it without faith and repentance, it is evident that such a justification could not have been made from eternity, but only in time–when the man actually believes and repents. Otherwise it would follow that he who is justified and consequently has passed from death unto life and become a child of God and an heir of eternal life, still remains in death and is a child of wrath. He who is not yet converted and lies in sin, remains in death (1 Jn. 3:14) and is of the Devil (1 Jn. 3:8) and in a state of condemnation (Gal. 5:21).

VI. Finally, since justification is a blessing of God, while a blessing cannot pass to us and be actually bestowed upon us, except in time, it is clear that it is not to be conceived of after the manner of an immanent and internal act in God, but after the manner of a transient act arising from God and passing over and terminating upon the creature (not that it may subjectively inhere in him, as the Romanists falsely hold because this pertains to sanctification; but that it may adhere to him and the creature has an objective relation to it, while the absolving sentence is intimated to him by the Holy Spirit). If grace is said to have been given to us in Christ before the world began by reason of “destination” (2 Tim. 1:9) because from eternity God decreed to give it to us in time, it does not follow that it can be said to have been really bestowed because the decree indeed causes us to obtain in time a right to life certainly and infallibly, but not that we can say we already obtained it actually. It causes that we should be justified, but not to be already justified.

(From: “Institutes of Elenctic Theology”)