ROMANS ROAD
to RIGHTEOUSNESS |
Romans
1:18-3:20
|
Romans
3:21-5:21 |
Romans
6:1-8:39 |
Romans
9:1-11:36 |
Romans
12:1-16:27 |
|
SIN
|
SALVATION
|
SANCTIFICATION |
SOVEREIGNTY |
SERVICE |
NEED
FOR
SALVATION |
WAY
OF
SALVATION |
LIFE
OF
SALVATION |
SCOPE
OF
SALVATION |
SERVICE
OF
SALVATION |
God's Holiness
In
Condemning
Sin |
God's Grace
In
Justifying
Sinners |
God's Power
In
Sanctifying
Believers |
God's Sovereignty
In
Saving
Jew and Gentile |
Gods Glory
The
Object of
Service |
Deadliness
of Sin |
Design
of Grace |
Demonstration of
Salvation |
|
Power Given
|
Promises Fulfilled |
Paths Pursued |
Righteousness
Needed |
Righteousness
Credited |
Righteousness
Demonstrated |
Righteousness
Restored to Israel |
Righteousness
Applied |
God's Righteousness
IN LAW |
God's Righteousness
IMPUTED |
God's Righteousness
OBEYED |
God's Righteousness
IN ELECTION |
God's Righteousness
DISPLAYED |
|
Slaves to Sin |
Slaves to God |
Slaves Serving God |
|
Doctrine |
Duty |
|
Life by Faith |
Service by Faith |
|
Modified from Irving
L. Jensen's excellent work "Jensen's
Survey of the NT" |
BEING JUSTIFIED: dikaioumenoi
(PPPMPN): (Ro
4:16; 5:16, 17, 18, 19; 1Cor 6:11; Eph 2:7, 8, 9, 10; Titus 3:5, 6, 7)
(Justification
in Holman Bible Dictionary)
As Morris says, now Paul
moves from...
From tragedy to triumph. (Morris,
L. The Epistle to the Romans. W. B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press)
William Newell writes...
We now come to the greatest single
verse in the entire Bible on the manner of justification by faith: We
entreat you, study this verse. We have seen many a soul, upon
understanding it, come into peace. (Romans: Verse by
Verse)
Guzik observes that...
Paul develops his teaching about
salvation around three themes.
Justification: an image from
the court of law
Redemption: an image from the slave market)
Propitiation: an image from the world of religion, appeasing God
through sacrifice
Justification solves the problem of
man's guilt before a righteous Judge. Redemption solves the problem of
man's slavery to sin, the world, and the devil. Propitiation solves the
problem of offending God our Creator.
Even as all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God is universal, so is the offer of being
justified freely by His grace. It is open to everyone who will believe.
Morris, quoting Moule: "The harlot, the liar, the murderer, are short of
it; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you
on the crest of an Alp; but you are as little able to touch the stars as
they." Everyone falls short, but everyone can be justified freely by His
grace. (Ref)
Being justified
(1344)
(dikaioo
from dike = right,
expected behavior or conformity, not according to one’s own standard,
but according to an imposed standard with prescribed punishment for
nonconformity) (Click
for
more discussion of
dikaioo)
primarily means to deem to be right.
Dikaioo describes
the act by which a man is brought into a right state of relationship to God. Dikaioo is a legal term having to do with the law
and the the courtroom, where it represented the legally binding verdict of the
judge. This is the sense in which Paul uses dikaioo
in this section in Romans (Ro 3:21-5:11) in which he unfolds the doctrine
of justification.
Dikaioo is found 39 times
in the NAS, most often in Romans (Mt 11:19; 12:37; Lk. 7:29, 35;
10:29; 16:15; 18:14; Acts 13:38, 39; Ro 2:13; 3:4, 20, 24, 26, 28, 30;
4:2, 5; 5:1, 9; 6:7; 8:30, 33; 1Co 4:4; 6:11; Gal 2:16, 17; 3:8, 11, 24;
5:4; 1Ti 3:16; Titus 3:7; Jas. 2:21, 24, 25)
and is translated: acknowledged...justice, 1; acquitted, 1; freed, 3;
justified, 24; justifier, 1; justifies, 2; justify, 4; vindicated, 3;
Dikaioo is found 28 times in the
Septuagint (LXX)
(Ge 38:26; 44:16; Ex
23:7; Deut 25:1; 2Sa 15:4; 1Ki 8:32; 2Chr 6:23; Esther 10:3; Job 33:32;
Ps 19:9; 51:4; 73:13; 82:3; 143:2; Isa 1:17; 5:23; 42:21; 43:9, 26;
45:25; 50:8; 53:11; Jer 3:11; Ezek 16:51f; 21:13; 44:24; Mic 6:11; 7:9)
The meaning of
dikaioo depends on the context and depending on which lexicon you
consult you will come up with a variety of definitions so the following
is an attempt as classifying most of the NT uses, but please be a Berean
and do you own study of this word.
(1) To cause someone to be in a
proper or right relation with someone else. This use corresponds to
the vitally important truth imputed righteousness and thus means to
justify or to declare righteous, which is only accomplished by faith and
not by works as explained in definition #2.
Romans 3:24
being
justified (declared righteous and in proper or right relation to
God) as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus
Titus 3:7 (note)
that being justified (declared righteous and in proper or right
relation to God) by His grace we might be made heirs according to the
hope of eternal life.
(2) To show to be right or righteous.
Matthew 11:19 "The Son of Man
came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a
drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!' Yet wisdom is
vindicated (dikaioo - shown to be right, proved to be in the right
and accepted by God) by her deeds."
Luke 7:35 "Yet wisdom is
vindicated (dikaioo - shown to be right) by all her children."
James uses dikaioo in this sense - to show to be righteous. And
so we see that Abraham's works show that he was righteous. He had been
declared righteous by faith in Genesis 15:6, but was shown to be
righteous in Genesis 22, which is the point that James is making in the
following passages.
James 2:21 (note) Was not Abraham our
father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on
the altar? (Note: Do not misunderstand. James is not using
dikaioo in this context to say a Abraham was declared
righteous but that he was shown to be
righteous by his work - his willingness to offer Isaac. This "work" was
the visible manifestation to men of the fact that at some point in time
in the past -- Genesis 15:6 -- Abraham had been justified by faith and
declared righteous by God on the basis of his faith, not on the basis of
his works. This verse illustrates why it one has to be very careful to
observe the context when defining any Greek word. Many people read these
three passages in James and are confused because they read them in light
of definition #1 above which does not apply to this context. The New
Living Translation does an excellent job of accurately paraphrasing this
passage to give it the intended meaning...
James 2:21 Don't you remember
that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his
actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? (NLT)
James 2:24 (note) You see that a man
is justified (shown to be righteous) by works, and not by faith
alone.
James 2:25 (note) And in the same way
was not Rahab the harlot also justified (shown to be righteous)
by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out by another
way?
In some cases dikaioo refers to Jesus or God Who are
demonstrated to be morally right (Divine vindication)...
Romans 3:4 (note)
May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be
found a liar, as it is written, "That Thou mightest be justified
(shown to be just) in Thy words, And mightest prevail when Thou art
judged." (quoting Ps 51:4)
1Timothy 3:6 (This description refers to Jesus) And by common
confession great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the
flesh, Was vindicated (dikaioo - shown to be right) in the
Spirit, Beheld by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in
the world, Taken up in glory.
(3) To make free, liberate, set free or release from
the control of . This meaning is similar to another Greek verb
eleutheroo.
BDAG explains that the idea is "to cause someone to be released from
personal or institutional claims that are no longer to be considered
pertinent or valid"
Romans 6:7
For he who has died is freed (dikaioo in the
passive voice
= has been released)
from sin (the power of
Sin to
which we were enslaved)
Acts 13:39 and through Him
everyone who believes is freed (dikaioo -
passive voice
= has been set free)
from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of
Moses.
(4) Acknowledging that someone is
just or right.
Luke 7:29 And when all the
people and the tax-gatherers heard this, they acknowledged God's
justice, (they acknowledged that God's way was right) having been
baptized with the baptism of John.
(5) Man declaring that he is just
or right. This is something man does and based on his standard of
righteousness (self righteousness) not God's standard.
Luke 10:29 But wishing to
justify (declare himself righteous) himself, he said to Jesus, "And
who is my neighbor?" (Comment: Notice that this young lawyer is
trying to limit the demand of the law by asking "Who is my neighbor?"
and by limiting it he would then show that he had fulfilled it. In other
words this man would judge himself by his own standard of righteousness
-- not God's perfect standard -- but he would not be justified in
the sense of definition #1)
To understand dikaioo, one needs to
understand the root work dike which originally meant
manner, tendency and with time came to refer to the designation for the
right of established custom or usage. Stated another way, the basic
meaning of dike involves the assertion by human society of
a certain standard expected by its people which, if not kept, can bring
forth ensuing judgment. Thus it can be said that díke is
expected behavior or conformity, not according to one's own standard,
but according to an imposed standard (here in Romans it is God's
standard of righteousness) with prescribed punishment for nonconformity.
Dikaioo ends in "-oo" which in Greek brings out
that which a person is. Therefore dikaioo brings out the
fact that a person is righteous. It means to declare the rightness of
something or someone.
Leon Morris
adds a note on dikaioo writing that...
The word is a forensic or legal term
with the meaning “acquit”. It is the normal word to use when the
accused is declared “Not guilty”. We see its significance in an Old
Testament passage:
“When men have a dispute, they are to
take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting (or,
justifying) the innocent and condemning the guilty” (Deut. 25:1).
Here the legal meaning is plain, and
this remains with the word throughout the range of its biblical use.
Some argue that it means “to make righteous”, but this cannot be
demonstrated. The impossibility of making righteous is clear when the
word is used of God (Ro 3:4-note).
It is plain also in the use of the future tense “will be justified”
(Ro 2:13-note), for the reference is to Judgment Day and no one will be “made
righteous” on that day. Moreover, that passage refers to “the doers of
law” as “justified”, but by definition “doers of law” are righteous:
they cannot be “made” righteous. The declaratory meaning is clear.
It is to be inferred also from the fact that it stands in opposition to
condemnation. “To condemn” does not mean “to make wicked”, but “to
declare guilty”; similarly, “to justify” means “to declare just” (Morris,
L. The Epistle to the Romans. W. B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press)
Vine says that dikaioo means
"to show, or declare, to be right.” In the N.T. it mostly signifies
“to declare a person to be righteous before God." (Vine,
W. Collected writings of W. E. Vine. Nashville: Thomas Nelson
)
In simple terms dikaioo as used here in Romans means...
To
declare a person to be righteous or right
before God
Only God can declare
a man righteous and yet men continually seek ways to make
themselves righteous. For example, in the gospels we encounter a certain
lawyer (a scribe who was supposedly an expert in the law of God)
approach Jesus to put Him to the test asking
"Teacher, what shall I
do to inherit eternal life?" (Lk 10:25).
Jesus responded to the
question with another question for this one who knew the Law asking
"What
is written in the Law? How does it read to you?"
The lawyer answered
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind;
and your neighbor as yourself." (Lk 10:26-27)
This was indeed an
excellent answer, the lawyer summing up the requirements of the law (Lev
19:18, Dt 6:5) exactly as Jesus Himself had done on another
occasion (see Mt 22:37, 28, 29, 40)
And so Jesus responded
"You have answered correctly;
do this, and you will live." But wishing to justify
(dikaioo) himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my
neighbor?” (Lk 10:28, 29)
Expositor's Bible Commentary
explains dikaioo as follows...
In classical Greek the verb
dikaioo was sometimes used to mean "do right by a person, give him
justice." As a result, it could be used in the sense of "condemn." But
in its biblical setting it is used in the opposite sense, namely, "to
acquit" (Ex 23:7; Dt 25:1). It is clear both from the OT and the NT that
dikaioo is a forensic term; it is the language of the law court. But to
settle on "acquittal" as the meaning of justification is to express only
a part of the range of the word, even though an important part (Acts
13:39). There is a positive side that is even more prominent in NT
usage--"to consider, or declare to be, righteous." The word does not
mean "to make righteous," that is, to effect a change of character.
Because he considered it ethically deplorable that God should account
righteous those who have been and to some extent continue to be sinful,
Goodspeed defied the linguistic evidence and rendered dikaioo "to make
upright." He failed to realize that the question of character and
conduct belongs to a different area, namely, sanctification, and is
taken up by Paul in due course, whereas justification relates to status
and not to condition.
(Gaebelein,
F, Editor: Expositor's Bible Commentary 6-Volume New Testament.
Zondervan Publishing)
"Do and live" was indeed the
promise of the law (see Lev 18:5, Ezek 20:11). But since no sinner can
obey perfectly, the impossible demands of the law were always
meant to drive us to seek God's mercy (Gal 3:10, 11, 12, 13, 22, 23, 24,
25) and His
righteousness. The lawyer should have responded with a confession of his
guilt, rather attempting to justify himself with his
question "Who is my neighbor?"
The prevailing opinion among
scribes and Pharisees in Jesus' day was that one’s neighbors were
the "righteous" (at least those they considered "righteous"). According
to them, the wicked, like tax collectors and especially Samaritans—were
to be hated because they were the enemies of God. They cited (Ps 139:21,
22) to justify their position. Jesus teaching on the
familiar passage of the good Samaritan demolished any hope this lawyer
had to make himself righteous (dikaioo).
Being justified is an act of God (Ro 8:33-note) Who takes the initiative (cp
Ep 1:4-note, 1Pe 1:2-note, 2Th 2:13) and provides the means through the redemption which
is in Christ Jesus. The sinner who believes in Christ receives God's
gift of righteousness (Ro 1:17-note,
Ro 5:17-note), which then enables God to pronounce
him righteous (both Just & Justifier - Ro 3:26-note). This verse is perhaps the
most thorough soteriological (dealing with teaching on salvation) passage in the New Testament.
John MacArthur writes that
Being justified refers back to the “alls” of the previous two
verses-all those who have believed, of whom all were sinful. Just as
there is no distinction among those who need salvation, there is no
distinction among those who receive it, because they all are justified
as a gift by His grace.
Dikaioo means to declare the rightness of something or
someone. Justification is God’s declaration that all the demands
of the law are fulfilled on behalf of the believing sinner through the
righteousness of Jesus Christ. Justification is a wholly
forensic, or legal, transaction. It changes the judicial standing of the
sinner before God. In justification, God imputes (Ed: reckons,
places on one's "account") the perfect righteousness of Christ to the
believer’s account, then declares the redeemed one fully righteous.
Justification must be distinguished from sanctification, in
which God actually imparts Christ’s righteousness to the sinner. While
the two must be distinguished, justification and
sanctification can never be separated. God does not justify whom He
does not sanctify. (MacArthur,
J: Romans 1-8. Chicago: Moody Press)
(Bolding added)
In salvation dikaioo describes the legal act whereby God declares
the believing sinner righteous on the basis of the blood of Christ.
Justification is not doled out piecemeal over a period of time through
mediatorial agents and ritual observances. Stated another way,
justification is not a process but is an act that occurs once and need
not be repeated. It is something God does,
not man. Justification is not subject to recall
so that you have to get it over and over again (as in Radical Arminian
churches). Justification is not a change wrought by God in us, but a
change of our relation to God. Justification describes a person’s status
in the sight of the law, not the condition of his or her character. The
condition of one’s character and conduct is that with which
sanctification deals.
Wiersbe
says...
Do not confuse justification
and sanctification. Sanctification is the process whereby God
makes the believer more and more like Christ. Sanctification may change
from day to day. Justification never changes. When the sinner trusts
Christ, God declares him righteous, and that declaration will never be
repealed. (Wiersbe,
W: Bible Exposition Commentary. 1989. Victor)
(Bolding added)
Being justified is once and for all time and as such
defines the believers permanent state. Just as you
may not be tried for the same crime again after being acquitted, God's
justification means you will never be tried or condemned by Him again
for your sins--past, present, or future. This is good news indeed.
To reiterate, justification is not an act of God that
makes us righteous but is an act
of God that declares us righteous based on what Christ
accomplished on Calvary.
Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness
by Nikolaus von
Zinzendorf (Bio)
(Play)
Jesus, Thy blood
and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
’Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
Bold shall I stand in Thy great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.
The holy, meek, unspotted Lamb,
Who from the Father’s bosom came,
Who died for me, e’en me to atone,
Now for my Lord and God I own.
Lord, I believe Thy precious blood,
Which, at the mercy seat of God,
Forever doth for sinners plead,
For me, e’en for my soul, was shed.
Lord, I believe were sinners more
Than sands upon the ocean shore,
Thou hast for all a ransom paid,
For all a full atonement made.
When from the dust of death I rise
To claim my mansion in the skies,
Ev’n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.
This spotless robe the same appears,
When ruined nature sinks in years;
No age can change its glorious hue,
The robe of Christ is ever new.
Jesus, the endless praise to Thee,
Whose boundless mercy hath for me—
For me a full atonement made,
An everlasting ransom paid.
O let the dead now hear Thy voice;
Now bid Thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness.
MacDonald
emphasizes this distinction writing that...
To justify does not mean to actually
make a person righteous. We cannot make God righteous; He already
is righteous. But we can declare Him to be righteous. God does not
make the believer sinless or righteous in himself. Rather, God puts
righteousness to his account. As A. T. Pierson put it,
God in justifying sinners actually
calls them righteous when they are not—does not impute sin where sin
actually exists, and does impute righteousness where it does not exist.
(MacDonald,
W., & Farstad, A. Believer's Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments.
Nashville: Thomas Nelson)
At God’s Lighthouse Mission in Manhattan the men who attended services
in the ’50s were drilled nightly in Bible verses and in a particular
definition of “justified.” Justified, they were taught to repeat, means
“just as if I had never sinned in the sight of God.”
I was
taught this same phrase in Men's Bible Study Fellowship - "Justified" ~
"Just As If I Had Never Sinned". This teaching is not entirely accurate
for as discussed above dikaioo, means to be acquitted or to be pronounced righteous.
It is not “just as if I had never sinned” and does not go
far enough. More accurately it is
"just as if I had lived as perfect
a life as Jesus did!"
Once, when my normal green-tinted sunglasses were lost, I put on a
rose-colored pair. And everything I saw through them was rose colored. Justification is a little like this. God sees you and me through
Christ-colored glasses. When God looks at the person who believes in His
Son He sees the righteousness of Jesus Himself.
As someone has well said justification goes beyond acquittal to approval
and beyond pardon to
promotion. Acquittal means only that a person is set free from a
charge. Justification means that positive righteousness is imputed. It
is important to realize that justification is a reckoning that takes
place in the mind of God. It is not something a believer feels. The
believer can be certain
it has taken place because the Bible says so. C I Scofield expressed
it this way
Justification is that act of God whereby He declares righteous all who
believe in Jesus. It is something which takes place in the mind of God,
not in the nervous system or emotional nature of the believer.
Dikaioo in other
contexts can mean vindicated, proved, pronounced as, declared or shown
to be. For example, Paul in recording part of an early church hymn
describes Jesus as
He Who was revealed in the flesh, was
vindicated (dikaioo) in the Spirit. (NAS,1Ti 3:16 - note KJV reads "justified
in the Spirit" which is somewhat confusing.)
Comment: Vindicated in this context is easier to
understand if translated as "declared (or shown)
to be righteous" (with respect to His spiritual nature). The NLT
paraphrased version renders it "shown to be righteous by the Spirit"
Dikaioo is used in this way in Romans 3 where Paul writes
let
God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written,
“That Thou mightest be justified (dikaioo - shown to
be right, proved to be right) in Thy words" (see note
Romans 3:4)
C H Spurgeon
writes
What is
justification? A. Justification is an act of God's free grace,
wherein he pardons all our sins (Ro 3:24-note;
Eph 1:7-note),
and accepts us as righteous in His sight (2Cor 5:21) only for the
righteousness of Christ imputed to us (Ro 5:19-note),
and received by faith alone (Gal 2:16; Php 3:9-note).
Note: This
discussion is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the verb
dikaioo or of the profound doctrine of justification. For a more exhaustive
treatment I would highly recommended Dr Wayne Grudem's work,
Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical
Doctrine (IVP; Zondervan, 1994)
(or
click here for Grudem's work in computer format).
The following quote is taken from his book and emphasizes the crucial
importance of an accurate understanding of dikaioo and the
doctrine of justification. Grudem writes that...
A right understanding of
justification is absolutely crucial to the whole Christian faith.
Once Martin Luther realized the truth of justification by faith alone,
he became a Christian and overflowed with the new-found joy of the
gospel. The primary issue in the Protestant Reformation was a dispute
with the Roman Catholic Church over justification. If we are to
safeguard the truth of the gospel for future generations, we must
understand the truth of justification. Even today, a true view of
justification is the dividing line between the biblical gospel of
salvation by faith alone and all false gospels of salvation based on
good works. (Systematic
Theology) (Bolding added)
|
JUSTIFY
by
Kenneth Wuest |
|
The words
justify, justification, righteous, righteousness, just, right,
meet, are all translations of the same Greek root. The verb justify is
dikaióō, the noun righteousness, dikaiosune, the
adjective righteous,
dikaios. This means that all these words have
a general meaning that is common to all of them, even though their
individual meaning may differ slightly. This again means that there is a definite and vital connection between the act of
justifying and the righteousness of the individual who has been
justified.
We will look first at the usage of these words in pagan
Greek literature.
“In pagan Greece the dikaios person is he who
does not selfishly nor yet self-for-gettingly transgress the
bounds fixed for him, and gives to everyone his own, yet still
desires what is his, and does not in the least withdraw the
assertion of his own claims.”
Paul uses dikaios in its purely
classical sense in Ro 5:7 (note). In the biblical sense, dikaios is “what
is right, conformable to right, answering to the claims of usage,
custom, or right.… The fundamental idea is that of a state or
condition conformable to order, apart from the consideration
whether usage or custom or other factors determine the order or
direction. Thus, dikaios is synonymous with
agathos
(good -word
study), only
that dikaios is a conception of a relation and presupposes a norm,
whereas the subject of agathos is its own norm.”
In
understanding the words justify and |