One word focus for today: justification.

Sounds like a big, complicated word, doesn’t it? Well, friends, it is a precious word that when properly understood causes us to sing of God’s amazing grace.

What it is not: Over the years, occasionally I have heard a well-meaning person say, “Justification is just as if I never sinned.” Nope! Wrong! Hit the buzzer because this is incorrect. If that were true, then our justification at best would only declare us innocent. If you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, justification goes beyond, way, way, way beyond simply “just as if I never sinned.”

Dr. Floyd Barackman, my beloved Theology professor, wrote, “Justification is the judicial act of God whereby He acquits the gospel believer of the divine verdict of condemnation and declares him to be righteous, for He has made him so.

Acquitted.
No condemnation.
Declaration of righteousness.
He made it so.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him” (Romans 5:1, 7-9).

What amazing grace. May this thrill us and grip our hearts, causing us to rejoice that when we trusted Christ as Savior, we wonderfully, gloriously experienced His justification.