Question on Justification

By using the word eternal, do you mean from eternity past? So that you were born already justified?

 

I looked up "Eternal Justification" in the Bible - collected all the texts and placed them in a file.

Justification is "by Faith" if you do not choose to place your faith in Christ - you are not justified.

Furthermore - IF once you DO place your faith in Christ - you elect to go the path of the child of God in Matt 18 then as Christ stated - forgiveness is revoked. You will "owe the original debt" once again and must pay it yourself.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Okay, so how do you explain Eph. 2 where it says we are all at one point children (or objects) of God's wrath? I would take that to mean that for some period of time, God's wrath is directed toward those who are elect. If even in God's eyes only we are justified (or put in the right), how can God's wrath continue to be be directed toward us?

 

As I see it Justification as a doctrine is one of the grand and cardinal doctrines of the word of God. And justification as a fact pertains only to those who the Bible refers to as God's elect. From the point of God's elect being called by efficacious grace of the Spirit of Christ through the Biblical Gospel of grace they believe biblically as pertains to their justification. A person who in his belief(s) is contradicting what the Bible teaches as to justification has not been "justified by faith" in spite of his claims of being a believer in grace. Persons who go about boasting that the thing which settled the matter of their (claimed) justification in the sight of the holy God was an act of faith on their part have not had their boasting excluded once and for all (Romans 3:27) by a law of faith. They are still evidently and manifestly unsubmitted to God's righteousness, Romans 10:3. Even such who are more subtle in their profession and say that the faith which justified them before God was a divine gift are likewise evidently unsubmitted to God's righteousness, and have no real understanding of how God can be a just God and a Saviour. The thing, yea, the sum and substance, which justified the whole election of grace in God's sight was nothing more and nothing less than God the Son incarnate, Jesus Christ, and His finished work of mediation on behalf of His very people which was His from all eternity. Christ said just prior to voluntarily giving up His ghost death that "It hath been finished", just like Matthew prophesied in Matt. 1:21. There on the cross of Golgotha the Son of God having come in flesh justified His beloved people before the thrice holy God. This in the Bible is called "justification of life" inasmuch as that justification demands that all for whom Christ stood as representative be made alive in time, on the footing of His resurrection from among dead ones, as Peter states in his epistle. Justification in and by Christ on Calvary's cross is the procuring cause of certain ones' being sovereignly regenerated in time by the voice of the Son of God in the power of the Spirit of God. Foreknowing and election are the ultimate causes of said regeneration.

Luther and many other heretics have propagated the unscriptural false teaching that a subjective act of faith (in Christ) of the heart is the thing which settles the matter of a man's justification before God. People who believe that lie are evidently unsubmitted to God's righteousness and are boasting of the flesh. They are most often subtle in their words as they are quick to add "but that faith is God's gift" and bring seeming support for this from Eph. 2:8. Do they not understand that God's Book teaches at least three kinds of justifications.

1. The justification which pertains to God's chosen people and which took place before God the Judge when Christ gave up His ghost on the cross of Calvary. This justification secured to that people all blessings temporal and eternal which God had decreed for their good, including regeneration in time by the Spirit, Gospel conversion, growth in grace and knowledge of the Lord Christ, glorification etc.
2. Experimental justification in time which is not in the sight of God so much as before the conscience of the elect individual already justified before God in Christ's Person on Calvary. This justification is said to be "ek pisteôs" (Gal. 3:24)- "from (or "by") faith". This justification is not "justification of life" (Rom. 5:18), but it occurs posterior to "life" or quickening by the Spirit, which according to the word of the truth is not a conscious experience. The one who has been experimentally justified by faith will ever avow that his justification before God was not by a subjective act of faith in Christ, but only and solely in and on the basis of and by the person and the work of Jesus Christ the incarnate Son of God, and that at the point of Christ's death on Calvary. This is also what the old Particular Baptists stated in their confessions.
3. The third justification which pertains to God's people is their justification or vindication in time before men, by good works wrought in God. I believe this justification/vindication of their persons before men is chiefly before the true household of God and Christ, and then only secondarily before outsiders, because the apostle John says that the world (the non-religious and the world of notional professors) does not know the children of God. Yet I believe certain natural men have some kind of discernment so as to recognize the true children of God by observing their godly works. Just today I read a book written by a pious but deceived Baptist who gave example of this. He correctly identified Joseph Charles Philpot as a true prophet of God on basis of some good works of his, in this case defending God's word against some of its enemies.

Here is by the way a powerful treatise by Philpot, which also touches upon justification. It suits the discussion well.

http://grace-for-today.com/1532.htm

Harald

 

Justification is by Jesus' Atonement. Thus those of us born A.D. are justified before being conceived in the womb. The penalty for our sins is not counted against us in the determination of our eternal life. Therefore if we believe in Jesus, that is have faith in Jesus, we are sanctified.

Sanctification is by individual faith in Jesus. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Belief is what separates the sheep from the goats, thus sanctifying the sheep. Therefore our Eternal life, that is Salvation, is based on Faith alone.

Salvation is by faith while Grace prevails. It is by faith alone that one is spared being cast into the lake of fire.

And you can't earn eternal life either!

 

We are only justified by His grace, through faith in the finished work on Calvary, by the Blood of Jesus Christ/ propitiation. That is for eternity from the point of salvation. Salvation ONLY comes through repentence of dead works, and that without presupposition/presumption.

 

Justification — a forensic term, opposed to condemnation. As regards its nature, it is the judicial act of God, by which he pardons all the sins of those who believe in Christ, and accounts, accepts, and treats them as righteous in the eye of the law, i.e., as conformed to all its demands. In addition to the pardon of sin, justification declares that all the claims of the law are satisfied in respect of the justified. It is the act of a judge and not of a sovereign. The law is not relaxed or set aside, but is declared to be fulfilled in the strictest sense; and so the person justified is declared to be entitled to all the advantages and rewards arising from perfect obedience to the law (Rom. 5:1–10).
Easton, M. G., M. A. D. D., Easton’s Bible Dictionary, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1996.

As far as eternal goes, I will cease to be justified just as soon as the reason I was justified in the first place wears out (The blood of Christ).

 

Bro. Dallas, let me add that Atonement by no means what ever eleminates the consequences of sins that we do.

For example: </font>

• Having sexual relations with one who has AIDS has consequences that Jesus' Atonement cannot rectify.</font>
• Aiming a loaded gun at a person and pulling the trigger has consequences that Jesus' atonement cannot rectify.</font>
• Telling an innocent child there is no need to believe in Jesus has consequences that Jesus' atonement cannot rectify.</font>
• Failing to tell others the Gospel message has consequences Jesus atonement cannot rectify.</font>

Even so, for the condition known as Salvation and or Eternal Life, Atonement covers ALL sins, thus eliminating them from the judgement of mankind leaving Faith Alone as the criteria for Salvation and Eternal life. That is why you will see murderers, etc, in heaven having been saved to eternal life. Is that Justice? No, that is Grace!

 

What is totally DEVASTATING to your position, Yelsew, is that refusing to come to Jesus in repentance and faith is a sin, which by your own admission has been atoned for.

 

What is totally DEVASTATING to your position, Yelsew, is that refusing to come to Jesus in repentance and faith is a sin, which by your own admission has been atoned for. </font>[/QUOTE]Who says that refusing to believe, which is "coming to Jesus in repentance and faith, is a sin? It is a life or death decision!

What you don't want to acknowledge is that sin is not a factor in salvation!

 

God has commanded it. Breaking a command of God is a sin.

As I stated, your position is now totally DEVASTATED.

 

Once again, we do not agree! Even so, we will both, by faith and faith alone, have eternal life with the Christ!

 

I take it that you have decided to stop digging the hole you were in any deeper. Wise choice, my friend.