justification on Status Quo

The Danish philosopher and contrarian Soren Kierkegaard once compared Christians of his time to a flock of geese in a barnyard. Every week, they listened to an eloquent speaker who recounted the stori...

The character Quentin from Henry Miller’s Play, After the Fall explains a life without God: For many years I looked at life like a case at law. It was a series of proofs. When you’re young you prove ...

Those who have been justified are now being sanctified; those who have no experience of present sanctification have no reason to suppose they have been justified.

Justification is a legal or forensic term, belonging to the law courts. Its opposite is condemnation. Both are the pronouncements of a judge. In a Christian context they are the alternative eschatolog...

Justification is a legal or forensic term, belonging to the law courts. Its opposite is condemnation. Both are the pronouncements of a judge. In a Christian context they are the alternative eschatolog...

When God “credits righteousness", He is conferring a legal status on someone. He treats them as actually righteous and free from condemnation, even though they are still actually unrighteous in t...

Justification is a courtroom term, meaning to declare righteous or innocent. It is a divine verdict based on the righteousness of Christ, imputed to the believer by faith alone.

I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination o...

There is a television show that has one of those beginnings that stick with you long after you’ve seen it. And it starts like this…A man, dressed like a cowboy enters an ultra sleek Miami club, lookin...

God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away.

My faith life, like that of every one else, fluctuates. There are ups and downs and hot spots and cold spots and boredom and ennui and all the rest can be there. And so I’m not asked on a Sunday morni...

A living faith is that which pours itself out in works.

Let’s talk about how our beliefs shape our actions, especially when fear is involved. You've probably heard the phrase, "ideas have consequences," right? It's easy to see this in act...

At the beginning to the musical Les Misérables , the lead character Jean Valjean is arrested by the police, with silver he has stolen from a kindly bishop who had given him shelter. Valjean is plainl...

“To ‘justify’ in the Bible means... to declare ... of a man on trial, that he is not liable to any penalty, but is entitled to all the privileges due to those who have kept the law. Justifying is the ...

Holy God We are holy, Not in the sense of any rightness within us, But because we are in a relationship with you, We are holy because you gift that it is so. We are not called to into a division of us...

Leader: May we go from here knowing we stand upright before the Father because of Christ’s works and not our own. Go, and serve the Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit!

Sisters and brothers, hear the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have als...

Romans 6 shines a bright spotlight on the dangerous half-truth, currently fashionable, that ‘God accepts us as we are.’ Will ‘God’s acceptance’ do as a complete grounding of Christian ethics? Emphatic...

Introduction In Romans 10 we are encouraged to call upon the Lord. Lest we believe that our returning to God is ultimately a matter of works or our own merit, Paul wants us to see that repentance fi...

Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God l...

Justified…for what? This passage from Romans 5 sits at the heart of the Protestant doctrine of justification: Paul’s statement that “we are justified by faith” is as clear as we could ask for! The fa...

Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.

Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this excellent little character study, Tolstoy describes the inner monologue of the character Pierre Bezuhov from War & Peace , who is able to justify and convince himself that a promise made ...

For although faith alone justifies, love is also demanded…. A living faith is that efficacious, burning trust in the mercy of God which never fails to bring forth good fruits.

A prayer for All Saints' Day or the following Sunday. Meant to be prayed in unison. An optional section is provided to make this a confession of sin. Almighty God, we were once helpless and wand...

Justified…for what? This passage from Romans 5 sits at the heart of the Protestant doctrine of justification: Paul’s statement that “we are justified by faith” is as clear as we could ask for! The f...

Sanctification is a process. Basically, the word sanctified means “set apart.” The term saint comes from the same root and means “a set-apart one” to the Lord. Another word with the same meaning is ho...

The prophet Jeremiah reminds us that when it seems all hope is lost, God is still working toward restoration. Friends, believe the Good News today: through the messiah, the righteous branch, our sins ...