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How and When God Justifies Sinners

How and when God justifies sinners are inseparably connected.

This is one of the earliest questions in the Bible as recorded in Job 9:2 - “I know it is so of a truth: but how should man be just with God?”

There are those who will say that it doesn't matter 'when' so long as we agree on how, but the Scriptures do not separate the HOW and WHEN. Hebrews 1:3 states -“…when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

When were the sins of God’s elect purged (the tense there is once for all)? It is clearly at the cross, (Hebrews 10:10).

If it says that Christ sat down, that means the work is complete.

To make our righteousness before God to be established, accomplished, or fulfilled anywhere or anytime else is to render the death of Christ a vanity.

The apostle Paul wrote, “I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law (any other rule, work, or ordinance than the death of Christ), then Christ is dead in vain.”

Some would say that He only died to make sinners savable, or that their believing on Christ is what makes His work effectual, but not before.

Others speak of Christ having secured the salvation of God’s elect at the cross, but allow for sinners to have been forgiven and justified before anyway.

Still others speak of Christ having secured salvation, but that they continue under the wrath and condemnation of God until they believe.

Either way, it moves away from the cross the importance of what Christ accomplished when He died, and upon completion of His death.

When Christ died, He did not cry, “It is secured,” but rather, “IT IS FINISHED”-(John 17:4).

Let us rest in the Truth as it is revealed in God’s Word.

Yes, the salvation of sinners was predetermined from eternity, and there never was a time when the elect were not given to Christ as sinners- (Ephesians 1:4-5). Yet, it is also true that they were given to Christ on condition that He come and pay their sin debt, and satisfy law and justice, in order that God might be their just Justifier upon completion of His work at the cross, (Romans 3:24-26).

Although elect from eternity, they were not justified from eternity.

The Scriptures declare that He died “the Just for the unjust” (1 Peter 2:18).

Justification is by the blood of The LORD Jesus alone, (Romans 9:9-11).

As essential as faith is, it is not the cause or means of justification either. It is the evidence of Christ’s total satisfaction of God’s law and justice on the sinner’s behalf.

Either way, it was done when the LORD Jesus laid down His life.