Justification Quotes

Justification is through faith, not on account of faith.

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

Justification by faith is the hinge on which all true religion turns.

John Calvin (French Reformer)

Sanctification is so involved in justification that the justification can never be real unless it be followed by sanctification.

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

In justification, the sinner is not only pardoned, he is promoted.

John Blanchard

Justification is God’s act of remitting the sins of guilty men, and accounting them righteous, freely, by his grace, through faith in Christ, on the ground, not of their own works, but of the representative lawkeeping and redemptive blood-shedding of the Lord Jesus Christ on their behalf.

J. I. Packer

Justification does mean that we are right with God, but it does not imply that we are equal with him.

John Blanchard

There is a double degree of justification: one in our conscience now, another at the Day of Judgement.

Richard Sibbes

I fear it is sometimes forgotten that God has married together justification and sanctification.

J. C. Ryle

It is as dangerous to rest on a justification unattended with holiness as it is to rest on a justification that has works for its basis.

William S. Plumer

The real reason why the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone is unpopular is that it is grievously wounding to our pride.

John Robert Walmsley Stott (English Preacher)

While justification brings to the believer a new and permanent status, justification itself is a once-for-all act by which God acquits the sinner.

Douglas J. Moo

In common Greek, justification and justify are frequently forensic terms; that is, they relate to the law court and the act of acquitting or vindicating someone. It has to do with the innocence or virtue of a person. But more broadly it has to do with the norm of any relationship.

Walter A. Elwell; Barry J. Beitzel

By grace we are what we are in justification, and work what we work in sanctification.

Richard Sibbes

Justification never results from good deeds; justification always results in good deeds.

John Blanchard

The doctrine of justification is the foundation that supports all of the other benefits we receive from Christ.

Erwin W. Lutzer

Justification is God crediting a person the righteousness earned by Christ.

Gabriel Etzel

Justification means not only the forgiveness of our sins, but also that our sins have been dealt with and have been removed from us. Justification states that God regards us as righteous, as if we had not sinned. In other words, it is a stronger term than forgiveness; we may be forgiven and yet our sins remain upon us. But what God does for us in justification is to remove the guilt altogether, to remove the sin. It is not only that He does not punish us for it, but that He looks upon us as righteous, as if we had not sinned; that sin has been removed. Fellowship with God, 138

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

The first implication of our justification is that “we have peace with God.”

Douglas J. Moo

It seems probable that therefore marks a consequent conclusion from the entire first seven chapters, which focus primarily on justification by faith alone, made possible solely on the basis of and by the power of God’s grace.

John F. MacArthur

So ‘justification’ means to be in favour with God; ‘eternal life’ means to be in fellowship with God.

John Robert Walmsley Stott (English Preacher)

763It is admitted by all evangelical Christians that the standing or falling in the church is that of justification by faith.—12.279

Charles Spurgeon

Justification is the pillar of Christianity. An error about justification is dangerous, like a defect in a foundation. Justification by Christ is a spring of the water of life. To have the poison of corrupt doctrine cast into this spring is damnable.

Thomas Watson

Justification is a judicial act of God, in which He declares, on the basis of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that all the claims of the law are satisfied with respect to the sinner.

Louis Berkhof (American Calvinist Theologian)

If the article of justification is once lost, then all true Christian doctrine is lost.

Martin Luther (Founder of the German Reformation)

Justification, then, is a three-party, not a two-party, matter.

Millard J. Erickson

We in Christ = justification; Christ in us = sanctification.

Martin Luther (Founder of the German Reformation)

For Rome, faith plus works equals justification. For Protestantism, faith equals justification; but that faith produces good works.

R. C. Sproul

In justification we are declared righteous, that in sanctification we may become righteous. Justification is what God does for us, while sanctification is what God does in us. Justification puts us into a right relationship to God, while sanctification exhibits the fruit of that relationship. —William Evans

William Evans

We have to fight for the great doctrine of justification by faith, it is constantly being attacked, but it would be a very grievous thing if, in asserting that, we in any way detracted from this other teaching which reminds Christian people that all their works are observed by the Lord, the righteous judge, and that what you and I do as Christians in this world will have an effect upon our life in glory in the next world. Great Doctrines of the Bible (3), 246

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

To begin with, justification is an act, not a process. There are no degrees of justification; each believer has the same right standing before God.

Warren W. Wiersbe

What I hope to show is that justification is the act whereby God creates a new people, with a new status, in a new covenant, as part of the first installment of the new age.

Michael F. Bird

Pardon is negative, the remission of a penalty or debt; justification is positive, the bestowal of a righteous status, the sinner’s reinstatement in the favour and fellowship of God.

John Robert Walmsley Stott (English Preacher)

Most important, justification does not mean that God makes us righteous, but that He declares us righteous. Justification is a legal matter. God puts the righteousness of Christ on our record in the place of our own sinfulness.

Warren W. Wiersbe