Justified

For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers, and saw corruption; but He whom God raised up saw no corruption. Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. – Acts 13.36-39

‘Justified’ is an awesome word. I have heard all kinds of explanations as to what it means. I like the notion that it means to be ‘just as if I’d never’ sinned. It means that we have been made right right God. People have tried all kinds of things to be justified with God, but Paul makes is clear here that justification could not happen by the law of Moses, but by believing.

My favourite picture of what justified means is something a lot of us see every day. When you work on a document one of the options you have it ‘justification.’ That word means to line up. We can line up your text to the left or the right or fully on both side. It means to bring your text in line.

It seems pretty simple, but that is what justification means theologically. It means to be lined up with God’s standard. Failure to be lined up with God’s standard means that we fall short of heaven. We can’t do anything to align ourselves with God’s standard. No matter how much we work we can’t do anything.

We are only justified by faith and by beleiving what God says. It only happens through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.