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be shown that justification with all its antecedents and consequents is a gracious work of God.
The substitute allowed for guilty sinners, the vicarious sufferings and obedience of Christ, the
imputation of His righteousness to unworthy transgressors, and God’s dealing with believers as
righteous, — it is all free grace from start to finish.
2. Justification is sometimes called an impious procedure, because it declares sinners to be
righteous contrary to fact. But this objection does not hold, because the divine declaration is
not to the effect that these sinners are righteous in themselves, but that they are clothed with
the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. This righteousness wrought by Christ, is freely
imputed to them. It is not the personal subjective righteousness of Christ, but His vicarious
covenant righteousness, that is imputed to those who are in themselves unrighteous, and all to
the glory of God.
3. It is often said this doctrine is ethically subversive, because it leads to licentiousness. But
there is no truth in this whatsoever, as even the lives of the justified clearly show. In
justification the sure foundation is laid for that vital spiritual union with Christ which secures
our sanctification. It really leads right on to the only conditions under which we can be truly
holy in principle. The man who is justified also receives the spirit of sanctification, and is the
only one who can abound in good works which will glorify God.
I. DIVERGENT VIEWS OF JUSTIFICATION.
1. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC VIEW.
The Roman Catholic view confounds justification and
sanctification. It includes the following elements in justification (a) the expulsion of indwelling
sin; (b) the positive infusion of divine grace; and (c) the forgiveness of sins. The sinner is
prepared for justification by prevenient grace, without any merits on his part. This prevenient
grace leads the sinner to a fides informis, to conviction of sin, to repentance, to a confident
reliance on the grace of God in Christ, to the beginnings of a new life, and to a desire for
baptism. Justification really consists in the infusion of new virtues after the pollution of sin has
been removed in baptism. After the expulsion of indwelling sin, the forgiveness of sin or the
removal of the guilt of sin necessarily follows. And after that the Christian advances from virtue
to virtue, is able to perform meritorious works, and receives as a reward a greater measure of
grace and a more perfect justification. The grace of justification can be lost, but can also be
restored by the sacrament of penance.
2. THE VIEW OF PISCATOR.
Piscator taught that only the passive obedience of Christ is imputed
to the sinner in justification, unto the forgiveness of sins; and that His active obedience could
not possibly be imputed to him, unto the adoption of children and an eternal inheritance,
because the man Christ Jesus owed this to God for Himself. Moreover, if Christ had fulfilled the