Theological glossary · FaithLogic

Justification

God's act of declaring a sinner righteous in his sight — acquitted, accepted, and counted as in the right — on the basis of Christ.

Latin justificare, 'to make/declare righteous'; renders Greek dikaioō, a law-court verb ('to acquit, vindicate, declare in the right').

Romans 3:21–4:25; Romans 5:1, 9; Galatians 2:15–21; 3:1–14; Philippians 3:8–9; Titus 3:7; James 2:14–26 (the disputed text).

Central to Paul's argument against requiring the works of the law of Gentile believers; recovered and sharpened at the Reformation (sola fide, imputed righteousness); defined at Trent (1547) in Catholic terms; the subject of the 1999 Lutheran–Catholic Joint Declaration.

Protestants: a forensic (declarative) act, by grace, through faith alone, on the ground of Christ's imputed righteousness, distinct from sanctification. Catholics and Orthodox: God makes the sinner actually righteous by infused grace, faith working through love; justification and renewal are not sharply separated.

Forensic vs. transformative; faith alone vs. faith formed by love; imputed vs. infused righteousness; the 'New Perspective on Paul' on what 'works of the law' meant.

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