The revelation of the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:17) is also called justification (Rom. 3:24). As we have seen the righteousness of God is the act or activity of God whereby God sets man right with God Himself. Hence the revelation of the righteousness of God is this act of setting right, and this act of setting right is called justification. Justification is not just a pronouncement about something but is an act that brings about something; it is not just a declaration that a man is righteous before God but is a setting of a man right with God: a bringing him into a right relation with God. Justification is then essentially salvation: to justify is to save (Isa. 45:25; 53:11; see Rom. 6:7 where dikaioo is translated "freed" in RSV). This close relationship between these two concepts is more obvious in the Greek because the words translated "justification" and "righteousness" have the same roots, not two different roots as do the two English words.
There is a difference between justification in the Old Testament and that in the New Testament. In the Old Testament justification is the vindication of the righteous who are suffering wrong (Ex. 23:7). God justifies, that is, vindicates the righteous who are wrongfully oppressed. Justification requires a real righteousness of the people on whose part it is done. In Isa. 51:7 the promise of deliverance is addressed to those "who know righteousness, the people in whose hearts is my law." Similarly, in order to share in the promised vindication, the wicked must forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and return unto the Lord (Isa. 55:7). However, in the New Testament justification is not only a vindication of a righteous people who are being wrongfully oppressed but also a deliverance of the people from their own sins. Thus, Paul says that God is He "that justifies the ungodly" (Rom. 4:5). In the New Testament justification is not just a vindication of the righteous who has been wronged (this view is in Jesus' teaching in Matt. 5:6; 6:33; Luke 18:7), but also the salvation of the ungodly who is delivered from his ungodliness and unrighteousness. But justification not only saves the ungodly from their sins, it also brings them into the righteousness of faith. To be set right with God is to have faith in God. "Abraham believed God, and it [his faith] was reckoned unto him for righteousness" (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3,9; cf. Rom. 10:9; Phil. 3:9). Justification as God's act of setting man right with Himself brings man into faith, which is to be set right with God. Thus justification is through faith (dia pisteos, Rom. 3:30; Gal. 2:16) and out of or from faith (ek pisteos, Rom. 3:26,30; Gal. 2:16; 3:8, 24).
But justification as salvation is not only the deliverance from sin to righteousness but also the deliverance from wrath to peace and from death to life. Justification as deliverance from wrath to peace is set forth by the Apostle Paul in Romans 3:24-25:
"24 Being justified by His grace as a gift,Here Paul connects justification with the two other aspects of salvation, redemption and propitiation. Redemption is the deliverance from sin by the payment of a price called a ransom which is the death of Jesus Christ. And propitiation is the deliverance from the wrath by the sacrificial death of Jesus ("His blood") which turns away or averts the wrath of God through faith in that sacrifice ("through faith in His blood"). Christ's death as a propitiation turns away God's wrath from the one who has faith in that sacrifice. The wrath is turned away because the sin has been taken away ("forgiveness") by the death of Christ as a ransom, by which a man is redeemed or set free, delivered from sin. When sin has been removed there is no cause for God's wrath. No sin, no wrath. Man is saved from wrath because he is saved from sin.
through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus,
25 whom God set forth to be a propitiation,
through faith in His blood."
(ERS; see also Isa. 32:17)
"Being justified freely by faith we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. 5:1)"Much more then, being justified by His blood,
we shall be saved through Him from the wrath of God."
(Rom. 5:9)
Justification is also deliverance from death to life. Man is delivered from sin to the righteousness of faith because he is delivered from death to life. As sinners we were enemies of God, but through the death of God's Son we have been reconciled to God and are now no longer enemies. To be reconciled to God means we have passed from death to life and we are saved in His resurrected life (Rom. 5:10; see II Cor. 5:17-21). We are delivered from death by being "made alive together with Him" in His resurrection (Eph. 2:5). He was "raised for our justification" (Rom. 4:25). Thus justification is "justification of life" (Rom. 5:18). To be set right with God is to enter into fellowship with God. And this right relationship to God is life. Justification puts us into right relation to God and hence it is a justification of life. Fellowship with God is established when God reveals Himself to man and man responds to that revelation in faith. Life is a relationship between God and man that results from this revelation and the faith response to it. Apart from this revelation the response of faith is not possible, and this revelation is the offer of life and the possibility of faith. But life is not actual unless man responds in faith to the revelation of God Himself. Life is received in the act of faith. Since God's act of revelation is first, and man's response in faith is second and depends upon God's revelation, life results in the righteousness of faith and man is righteous because of life. Justification as the revelation of the righteousness of God brings about life and the righteousness of faith.
Justification is the free act of God's grace (Rom. 3:24; Titus 3:7). The source of justification is the love of God. And the love of God in action to bring man salvation is the grace of God (Titus 2:11). Hence justification is the true expression of the grace of God and the act of the love of God. Because justification is a gift (Rom. 3:24; 5:15-17), justification is free and is not something that can be earned (Rom. 4:4; 11:6). Being a free act of God's grace, justification has nothing to do with the works of the law (Rom. 3:20,28; 4:6; Gal. 2:16; 3:11; see also Eph. 2:2-9; Phil. 3:9; II Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5). The Scripture nowhere speaks of the righteousness or merits of Christ and of justification as an imputation of the merits of Christ to our account. The introduction of such a legalistic righteousness, even if it means the merits of Christ, into the discussion of the righteousness of God and of justification by faith obscures the grace of God and misunderstands the law as well as the gospel of the grace of God. In principle, the grace of God has nothing to do with legal righteousness and merits. God does not give man His grace by faith so that he can earn merits to gain eternal life nor to show that he is legally righteous before God. Jesus Christ did not satisfy in our place the demands of the law, either precept or penalty. Not because He was not able to do it but because God does not in His love and grace operate on the basis of law or legalistic righteousness.