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Justification
by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Justification does not merely mean forgiveness. It includes forgiveness, but it is much bigger than forgiveness. It means in addition that God declares us to be entirely guiltless; He regards us as if we had never sinned at all; He pronounces us to be just and to be righteous. In doing so, He is answering any declaration that the law may make with respect to us. It is the judge upon the bench not merely saying that the prisoner at the bar is forgiven, but that he pronounces him to be a JUST AND RIGHTEOUS PERSON. In justifying us God tells us that He has taken our sins and our guilt and has "imputed" them to, "put them to the account of," the Lord Jesus Christ and punished them in Him. He announces also that, having done that, He now puts to our account, or "imputes" to us, the perfect righteousness of His own dear Son. The Lord Jesus Christ obeyed the law perfectly; He never broke it in any respect; He gave a full and a perfect satisfaction to all its demands. That full obedience constitutes His righteousness. What God does is to put to our account, to put upon us, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. In declaring us to be justified, God proclaims that He now looks on us, not as we are, but as clothed with the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. A hymn by the Moravian Count Zenzendorf and translated by John Wesley, expresses it thus: Jesus, Thy robe of righteousness My beauty is, my glorious dress; Midst flaming worlds, in this arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head.