Spurgeon on Doctrine: Justification
The sense of this term is, in this place, and in most others, to declare a person to be just. A person is put on his trial, he is brought before the judge. One of two things will happen; he will either be acquitted or justified, or else he will be condemned. You and I are all virtually before the judge, and we are at this moment either acquitted or condemned, either justified or under condemnation.
- Justification, Propitiation, Declaration - October 9, 1870
Man’s Need for Justification
One cannot approach the doctrine of justification without first recognizing that mankind is sinful. That sinfulness means that the holy law of God has been, is being, and will continue to be transgressed by mankind. These transgressions leave man in need of justification before the Lord. A man might be considered just in the eyes of his fellow men, but cannot be considered so before God because of such transgressions against God. This transgression against God is unable to be brought to a point of justification by man’s own actions. Man cannot be declared just by his own merit.
Unless you are pulled down, Christ will never lift you up. Unless you know yourselves to be lost, you will never care for that Savior who came “to seek and to save the lost.” That is a second discovery, then; that it is important to be just before God, but that on account of the spirituality of God’s moral law, and our consequent inability to keep it perfectly, we are very far from standing in that position.
- Justification by Faith - April 28, 1867
Man, therefore, is unable to be justified to God through his own action. Only through faith can man be justified. He is under a curse and he cannot undo it himself. He is condemned, for God is never indifferent toward sin.
Just and Justifier
And this, I say, is through trusting, or believing. God’s way of your getting connection with Christ is through your reliance upon him. “Therefore, being justified” — how? Not by works; that is not the link, but — “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Christ offers to God the substitution: through faith we accept it: and from that moment God accepts us.
- Justification by Faith - April 28, 1867
God has devised a way by which He is able to be both just in His dealings with mankind and the justifier of mankind. He is just in that He holds mankind accountable for his sin. He is the justifier by being able to declare mankind forgiven because of his reliance on Christ. It is through the substitution and imputation in Christ that God is able to be both.
That way is simply this, a way of substitution and imputation. Our sins are taken off of us, and laid upon Christ Jesus, the innocent Substitute: “For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin.” Then, when this is effected, the righteousness which was wrought out by Jesus Christ is taken from him and imputed, reckoned unto us; so that the rest of the text comes true, “That we may be made the righteousness of God in him.” We are found in him not having our own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith.
- Justification, Propitiation, Declaration - October 9, 1870
A nature of sin was imputed to man because of Adam’s choice in the Garden. Adam is mankind’s representative and through him sin marred the world. Jesus Christ is the Second Adam. His righteous is imputed to mankind through faith. It is only because of God’s own grace that this imputation is possible and accomplished.
And then to make it clearer still, it is added by his grace, which is not a tautology, though it be a repetition. We are justified, not by any debt due to us, not because God was bound to justify, but because out of his own abundant love and rich compassion he freely makes the guilty to be pardoned, and the unrighteous to be justified by the righteousness of Christ.
- Justification, Propitiation, Declaration - October 9, 1870
By Faith
The only means by which justification before God is reached is through faith. There is no work, no action, or anything else that will bring it to mankind. Only faith.
The way of reaching this state of justification is not by tears, nor prayers, nor humblings, nor working, nor Bible-reading, nor church-going, nor chapel-going, nor sacraments, nor priestly absolution, but by faith, which faith is a simple and utter dependence and believing in the faithfulness of God, a dependence upon the promise of God, because it is God’s promise, and is worthy of dependence. It is a reliance with all our might upon what God has said. This is faith, and every man who possesses this faith is perfectly justified to-night.
- Justification by Faith - April 28, 1867
This faith is not so much an internal feeling man has, but a trust in what Christ did on the cross. It is faith the Son of God loves him and gave his life on the cross for him. And, because of this faith, man has peace with God.
Now, if you trust Christ, you shall be justified by faith. Being justified, your heart shall feel that perfect peace is brought into it, so that you shall meet your Father’s will with perfect equanimity, let it be what it may. Come life, come death, it shall not matter to you, for all is right between God and your souls.
- Justification by Faith - April 28, 1867
Justification is an “unpurchasable blessing (Pardon and Justification).” There is nothing that mankind could offer to God that would secure the pardon of his sin. It is God’s act to lay man’s sin on Jesus and offer this pardon through His blood. The man whose sin is covered by God and forgiven by God is indeed deeply and fully blessed.
Disclaimer: These articles are not meant to argue a point of doctrine as true or not. For many doctrinal beliefs there is breadth in how to interpret and understand it. There are certain ones that are non-negotiable and those will be accepted as understood by the reader. These writings are summaries of what Charles Spurgeon taught, preached, or communicated about various doctrines within the church. They are provided for informational purposes.