Dr. Reymond On Justification

Over against Rome’s polemic that the righteousness of justification is to be construed in terms of “sanctification and renewal of the inward man,” that is, in terms of the Christian’s “being inwardly made increasingly righteous” through the impartation or infusion of sanctifying grace stands the consentient biblical (and Protestant) insistence that the righteousness of justification is neither a righteousness which comes through any efforts on our part nor a righteousness infused or generated in us by the Holy Spirit. Rather, the righteousness of justification, as we have already said, is the objective God-righteousness of Jesus Christ, which God the Father, in the very act of justifying the ungodly, imputes to him, thereby constituting him legally righteous in his sight (which “constituting” act, of course, no human judge can do when a guilty party stands before him).

That the righteousness of justification is the God-righteousness of the divine Christ himself, which is imputed or reckoned to us the moment we place our confidence in him (see justification as a finished act in Rom. 5:1—“having been justified”), is amply testified to when the Scriptures teach that we are justified (1) in Christ (Isa. 45:24–25; Acts 13:39; Rom. 8:1; 1 Cor. 6:11; Gal. 2:17; Phil. 3:9), (2) by Christ’s death work (Rom. 3:24–25; 5:9; 8:33–34), (3) not by our own but by the righteousness of God (Isa. 61:10; Rom. 1:17; 3:21–22; 10:3; 2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9) and (4) by the righteousness and obedience of Christ (Rom. 5:17–19). In short, the only ground of justification is the perfect God-righteousness of Christ that God the Father imputes to every sinner who places his confidence in the obedience and satisfaction of his Son. Said another way, the moment the sinner, through faith in Jesus Christ, turns away from every human resource and rests in Christ alone, the Father imputes his well-beloved Son’s preceptive (active) obedience to him and accepts him as righteous in his sight. And the sinner, now a Christian, may (and as far as his righteousness before God is concerned he must) sing thereafter, in the words of Horatius Bonar:

 

      Not what my hands have done

         can save my guilty soul;

      Not what my toiling flesh

         has borne can make my spirit whole.

      Not what I feel or do

         can give me peace with God;

      Not all my prayers and sighs and tears

         can bear my awful load.

      Thy work alone, O Christ,

         can ease this weight of sin;

      Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God,

         can give me peace within.

      No other work, save thine,

         no other blood will do;

      No strength, save that which is divine,

         can bear me safely through.

*Reymond, R. L. (1998). A new systematic theology of the Christian faith (746–747). Nashville: T. Nelson.