RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Justification
But they designate the central interest which can not be surrendered; that form of the doctrine of justification can alone be adequate which satisfies this interest.
It is now plain in what sense justification as a forensic act is to be understood. If communion with God is established only by him, 2. Justifica- and if, on the other hand, both on action Estab- count of the personal nature of this lisb.es New relation of communion and because of Relations the remaining imperfection of the juswith God. tified, the thought of a magic transformation is excluded, then the justifying act of God on which the Christian position is based can be thought of only in the form of a gracious judgment of God which is not analytic but synthetic. In a word, since the justifying act of God does not first of all contemplate the establishing of a new ethical quality in man, but the founding of a new relation to God, it must be understood not as the confirmation of an ethical quality existing in man, but simply as a judgment of God's gracious will which passes over the sinner and in and with forgiveness of sins justifies and takes him up into communion with God. Even faith, without which there can be no justification, may not, as a meritorious attainment, be made the real ground of justification, nor may the continuance of the state of justification be grounded in part on the life-work of the Christian as a completing of God's act of justification. On the contrary, from beginning to end, the Christian position rests exclusively on God's gracious judgment, so that this, in spite of remaining imperfection, depends solely on affirming the judgment of faith. As a matter of terms, one may question whether God's relation to the sins of the justified person is to be interpreted as daily forgiveness or with older dogmaticians as a continuous justification. According to the former phraseology, the fundamental character of God's justifying act comes indeed to the clearest possible expression, but one may doubt whether the believer can avoid thinking of the daily forgiveness of sins as a constant and radical renewal of his relation to God. In any case, by the acceptance of the notion of a justification continually renewed one is not warranted in supposing that the Christian position is composed of ever new additions. On the contrary, a continuous state of grace is grounded in the original divine act of justification.
If, however, the continuity of this gracious state is due to the historical work of Christ, but originates and is sustained by the gracious judgment of justification, it follows at once that under all circumstances justification and the historical work of Christ must be brought into the closest connection. But the limits within which this con- 3. Condi- nection is to be sought are designated tions of Jus- by the following propositions: (1) justification, tification may not be identified with the historical work of Christ— the Biblical connection between justification and faith would be obscured and the reality of a reciprocal communion of God and man lost. (2) It would be a relapse into the Roman Catholic way of thinking to see in the historical work of Christ only the
general ground of possible justification — manifestly the final decisive ground of the divine justifying act of God must then be somehow sought in man himself. If one carries through the combination already suggested in the Biblical presentation, then an adjustment between the apparently divergent interests is possible only when justification is understood as an actual fulfilment of God's offer of himself as completed in the historical work of Christ. Paul does not conceive that the reconciliation in Christ renders the demand " be ye reconciled to God " (II Cor. v. 20) superfluous; rather he sees in the word of reconciliation the necessary accomplishment of reconciliation. On the other hand, he believes that in the Gospel righteousness is disclosed and made efficacious. A combination of these two lines of thought compels one to see that God's historical offer of himself in the work of Christ endures in his Word and so reaches the individual. It is not the fact that God has reopened the way of access to himself in his historical revelation, while man must work his way through to God in reliance on the divine deed; on the contrary, self-disclosure of God in the Word effectively reaches the individual, and wherever through God's offer of grace one lets himself be won to trust in this, the judgment of justification is passed upon him, and this both objectively and subjectively establishes the condition of justification.
The same conclusion follows from the answer to the other question — What position and meaning belong to faith in the act of justification? That faith alone can be regarded as justifying is clear from the foregoing (III., § 1); there it was remarked that the justifying power of faith may not be found in its ethical quality. If fellowship with God rests solely on Christ's redemptive
4. Rela- work and the righteousness procured
tions of by it, then faith can be regarded sim- Faitb. and ply as the assimilating organ and as
Justifica- justifying only on account of the obtion. ject apprehended by it. The peculiar difficulty first emerges in the question, how this understanding of faith which is to be maintained under all circumstances is consistent with the other proposition which must be as firmly emphasized, that only where faith exist is there justification. Does not the latter position indeed involve that somehow on man's part faith appears as an efficient condition of justification? In reality this consequence would be unavoidable if one had to suppose that man — always of course under the influence of the Word — first himself ripens faith in Christ, and then God completes the judgment of justification on the ground of confirming this faith as if it were a finished achievement. The element of truth in such a view is that in fact faith in the strict sense is an offering of Christ to the wrath of God, and precisely for this reason justification comes to pass by means of it. Evidently these propositions which aim to complete the doctrine of justification really point to such a method as will not allow faith to appear in any way as real ground of justification. If, on the other hand, the conclusions just indicated are to be drawn, this means nothing less than that the original interest of the Reforma-
Justification Justin