Chapter 36 Flashcards
An instantaneous legal act of God in which He (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us and (2) declares us to be righteous in His sight.
Justification
What covers the guilt of our sin?
Justification, the legal declaration concerning our relationship to God’s laws, stating that we are completely forgiven and no longer liable to punishment. This grants us forgiveness for all past, present and future sins.
God can declare us to be just because He imputes Christ’s righteousness to us. Explain.
When we say that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us it means that God thinks of Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us.
First, when Adam sinned his guilt was imputed to us; God the Father viewed it as belonging to us, therefore it did.
Second, when Christ died and suffered and died for our sins, our sin was imputed to Christ; God thought of it as belonging to Him, and He paid the penalty for it.
Now for the third account, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us, and God thinks of it as belonging to us. It is not our own righteousness but Christ’s righteousness that is freely given to us.
What can we DO to receive justification?
There is nothing in us, or anything we can do to be just. We must simply believe ON Christ. Not just IN Him, that He exists. But ON Him in all He did in His life and death to pay the penalty for our sins.
To think of as belonging to someone, and therefore to cause it to belong to that person.
impute
Righteousness that God actually puts into us and that changes us internally. Roman Catholics understands justification to have such an infusion, and this differs than Protestants view that justification is a legal declaration by God.
infused righteousness
