Quotes about Justification

What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

The less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it

Oh, come! That boot is on the other leg. Why should you call me to account for eating decently? If I battened on the scorched corpses of animals, you might well ask me why I did that

God justifies the ungodly. This means there really is hope for people like us.

Holiness, then, is not necessary as a condition of salvation—that would be salvation by works—but as a part of salvation that is received by faith in Christ.

God will justify us from our sins, but he will not justify the least sin in us: He is a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.

All this means a vital shift from the usual reading of Romans to a truly Pauline one. Paul is not saying, "God will justify sinners by faith so that they can go to heaven, and Abraham is an advance example of this." He is saying, "God covenanted with Abraham to give him a worldwide family of forgiven sinners turned faithful worshippers, and the death of Jesus is the means by which this happens.

For hence it is that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him by God, by whose merit apprehended by faith he is absolved from his sins and obtains a right to life" (1992, 16.9). Faith is thus "the instrumental cause of our justification" (1992, 16.7) and by implication of our union with Christ. Hence, believers have "immediate and absolute union" with Christ (1992, 18.25).

When God's righteousness is mentioned in the gospel, it is God's action of declaring righteous the unrighteous sinner who has faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness by which a person is justified (declared righteous) is not his own but that of another, Christ.

This is enormous folly, and ignorance of Christian life and faith, when a man seeks, without faith, to be justified and saved by works.

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Romans 3:28

Thus the sum and substance of all doctrine is this, that we are not justified by any works, but that faith in Christ saves.