James’ Surprising Justification of Faith: A Prophetic Think Tank

James and the Meaning of Justification

You knew I would get to it sooner or later. Justification. The theological warfare of the ages. The theological volumes written. The schismatic hemorrhaging. This word has it all. There is no other single biblical word for which so deep allegiances have been forged and broken (that is, spiritual), for which the industries of theology have been more preoccupied, and over which more blood spilled (mostly spiritual).

To the Catholics its “justice” and for the Protestants its “righteousness.” It’s about an ongoing or transitional, salvific righteousness before God, or it’s about a momentary acceptance.

The battleground is usually between the Book of Romans and James. I suspect that the Catholics are formulating their definition to strengthen Church power and the Protestants to emphasize the relationship between man and Christ alone as Mediator, but this charge, basically one of having more political than theological concern, is only a hunch by me and it cant be anything that dominates my time. However, what does dominate my mind is prophetic words that have been crushed by the political and theological industry that has taken over the church of all denominations.

Here is how I frame the question, and it’s certainly not in its main respect to time or mediation, though I am not suggesting that these are without importance. Is it “justified” to assume that it is more important when someone is justified, or by what entity one is justified, or by why one is justified? Neither of the former two has this last as the main premise. The premise that the only what a thing contains is more needful for us to know than simply how it appears or what it is called. Because the contents of objects are assumed not normally open to view except through some examination and are at the same time the reason for their objective expressions. That also goes for the conceptual objects of persons and time. Those two superficial aspects surely make the content more prone to misidentification, obscurity, and equivocation as to its elements. It’s just that we have a duty and a deep desire to see beyond what they hide.

“Faith” is not the answer if put as one of these conceptual objects, because it begs the question. What faith content, and what can be said is the end of informational, demonstrative faith content? Certainly, we don’t mean faith in the pagan sense, of a kind which is composed of traditional utterances and statements in religious books that pretend to have no necessary external attestation beyond those statements themselves.

If you say “faith in Jesus” or “faith in the Church,” then the only thing you change is a word to a phrase. It only compounds the problem with not one, but now with two symbols that are expected to point only back to themselves or anywhere in the biblical ether. “Church” and “Jesus” are entities that require particular content. Are we to supply these with our own, or is the content that we choose expected not to have the same exactitude as they are their particular entities?

Well, taking Protestants on (the Catholic one is so naive it’s not enough of a challenge), it’s “faith that Jesus was crucified, died and rose the third day. He then ascended to Heaven and is our great High Priest.” Now its really getting complex, and still nowhere near supplying our answer. This is a religious conclusion. It is a symbol without a substantiating signification. There is nothing in this statement that is externally connected, nothing pertaining to, shall we say, “justification” for such a conclusion. Should we not go further to expect that this justification has not only an objective confirmability but is as miraculous as the assumed nature of what that justifies?

Here, in a nutshell, is our convoluted, intellectually inbred theology. We start with conclusions and we work back to find our logical, ethical, philosophical, emotional justifications for them, and we look for these kinds of things precisely because when we start with conclusions we already have in hand potentially sacred linguistic tokens that do not necessarily need anything that supports their power over us. Religious conclusions can take on a life of their own, become their own reason for existing, their own evidence. We know how dishonest this is, but, if we have a religious tick, and Christianity is the closest one available, we will choose Christianity for the exercise of our pagan instincts.

So the question is, what is justification? And I don’t mean what it looks like or when it comes, but what’s inside. If we are justified,  the reason why we are justified is parallel to what’s inside, insofar as we are talking about, with such distinctions as what and why, quantity and quality, something that if we don’t get right it does not matter what it looks like. Or from whom it comes. Or whether it comes in a moment or over a long time. This works both ways: from someone who justifies to someone who is justified, so it also involves a judgment on the part of the giver for some reason, and without his reason, that is also ours, it is never initiated.

We can start from the outset to identify in the most general terms what this content of justification cant be, and by that logic.

It’s not about what you do. This is a quantity, an appearance, a symbol, and is relatively superficial. What you do can be easily faked, and it is quite deceptive.  Positively, its got to be at least about what you love, what you think, the soundness and equity of the judgments you make over truth claims, and the things that you love in your spirit, what and how you think about them, and this honesty you exercise must be about spiritual claims. The spirit is the place which is the only honest place about us. It is what it is.

God does not make it for us, and it does not matter if you were born with it or you make it. You are responsible for its care or destruction. And what we love is there, what we do there, what we entertain there and spend energy upon is by definition the reason why we do things, the meaning, the signification of our imperfectly reflective actions.

If we are talking about Christian knowledge, truth claims, and spiritual motivations, and we want to know what is justification, what we are asking is what are the most important of such claims given by Jesus to our spirits he asks us over which to make a decision. I would argue that Jesus, as a personal symbol of this knowledge he preached, put it before that of his personal symbol and before a potential faith such that he required that no one come to him unless through the instigation of God through his witnesses the prophets.

All we have to do now is to just establish that the word “justification” is not by the external properties of person, place or time, nor a phrase in which a formulation of justification is composed. They are but possible symbols of this knowledge and love of which I speak that is justification’s content, that crucial reason, and meaning for justification. That content, as I said, is expected to itself be as miraculous as the object of our faith which triggers the justifying act by Christ. Now, if we have this presupposition, it is not unreasonable to find that we establish the essential nature of justification essentially by those instances where it is used with remarkable, miraculous information that Jesus preached of himself.

The Meaning of Justification: Divining the concept

There are three word-forms of justification that we can casually examine:

1. The feminine noun, δικη Ac 25:15; Ac 28:4; 2Th 1:9; Jude 1:7. Vengeance, judgment. This is in the negative. It’s interesting that in 2 Timothy and Jude these judgments are clearly on the occasion of prophecy being fulfilled. Of course, this sense of “judgment” is not exactly what we are looking for, but can we establish that when it is used in this way it speaks of vengeance for disobedience to the warnings of the Prophets?

2. δικαιος, Adjective: righteous

applied to model citizens in the Graeco-Roman world. Upright, just, righteous Mt 10:41; 13:43; Mk 6:20; Ro 1:17; 5:7; Hb 12:23; 1 J 3:7; law-abiding 1 Ti 1:9; honest, good, just Mt 1:19. Of God and Christ just, righteous, upright, fair J 17:25; Ac 7:52; 2 Ti 4:8; of Jesus upright, innocent Lk 23:47, cf. Mt 23:35 and 27:24 v.l. τὸ δίκαιον (what is) right or fair Mt 20:4; Lk 12:57; Ac 4:19; Col 4:1; δίκαιον ἡγοῦμαι, consider it a duty 2 Pt 1:13.¹

Over 150 verses. Here are some examples.

• Matthew 13:17 (Prophets are taken for the justified)
• Matthew 13:43 (The justified will inherit the eschatological Kingdom)
• Matthew 23:29 (Those not justified persecuted the Prophets)
• Matthew 23:35 (Abel and Zacharias were justified)
• Matthew 25:37 (The justified are those that serve Jesus (the Word))
• Luke 1:17 (Jesus (the Word) turns disobedient to the justified)
• Acts 7:52 (The wicked persecuted the just Prophets)

You can go over them yourself with as much rigor as you desire, and I certainly hope you will, but your senses will not prevent you from noticing here that, if we are looking in justification for a reason which is itself a transcendent display of God’s existence and power, and Jesus messiahship, justification is by reason of faith in the prophecies of Christ and their fulfillment. This is true when we take the negative as well as the positive: those who were not justified persecuted the prophets, those that are justified are those that know and believe the prophets.

3. Then, δικαιοω, the verb. Here we primarily take our conception of justification.

“the verb: to do one justice, to condemn, punish, to have justice done one’s self, to suffer justice, condemn, execute judgment ” (Thayer’s Lexicon, page 151); “Secure justice ” (TDNT);  “bring to justice ” (LSJ); “‘chastise, punish’” LSJ. “do justice [to/for].”²

• Matthew 11:19 (Wisdom justified, by those that are wise)
• Matthew 12:37 (Words justify)
• Luke 7:29  (God is justified by man)
• Luke 7:35 (Same as Matthew 12)
• Luke 18:14 (Publican justified for his humility)
• Acts 13:39 (What the Law could not do, Jesus justifies through faith)
• Romans 2:13 (Negative. The hearers of the Law are not justified, but the doers.)
• Romans 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. (Psa 51:4: justified in what one says…)
• Romans 3:20 (Negative)
• Romans 3:24 (Justified by his Grace, his gift)
• Romans 3:28 (Justified by faith, not the Law)
• Romans 4:2 (Negative. Abraham justified by works among people but not before God)
• Romans 5:1 (Justified by faith)
• Romans 5:9 (Justified by his (the Word’s) blood)
• Romans 8:30 (Jesus (the Word’s) called, justified: justified are glorified)
• 1 Corinthians 4:4 (Justified as stewards of the mysteries of God)
• 1 Corinthians 6:11 (Justified in the name of the Lord Jesus (the Word), and by the Spirit of our God)
• Galatians 2:16 (Negative, not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ (the Word))
• Galatians 2:17 (Justified by Christ (the Word)
• Galatians 3:11 (Negative. No man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.)
• Galatians 3:24 (Justified by faith)
• Galatians 5:4 (Negative)
• 1 Timothy 3:16 (God, Jesus (the Word’s) justified in the Spirit)

In all these, I ask you to take note of the mentions of Jesus. He is the “Word of God.” What word? See John Gill at 1 Timothy 3:16.³.

• Titus 3:7: (Justified by his (the Word’s) grace). Remember Romans 4:2.  Paul uses the same argument but clarifies that Abraham by his works could have claimed to be justified by any reason he so wished, but not before God. Justification is not by works before men.
• James 2:14: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? …James 2:18: Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. …James 2:19: Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.⁴ 

In all this, we seem to get no more than the fact that the believer is justified by Jesus alone, and that justification involves faith somehow (Reformed camp excluded). But, if by Jesus, if we take it as it is, we might conclude that justification is for any reason Jesus so chooses, and our faith is by any reason we so choose. But that would not be “justice” done on our part, to take the essence of the meaning of one of the most important words in the Christian lexicon from a bias for the prosaic and strictly out of contextless sentences.

The Meaning of Justification: Predestination?

The predestination argument adds to the question. “God foreordains people for Heaven.”

“Where then is our moral discernment in the initial process?

“There is none.”

“So even your free will is foreordained.”

“Yes”

“Why then did Jesus come?”

“Because he foreordains us.”

But leave it to James, unexpectedly: the last person whom Protestants would expect to supply the locus of the definition of justification. He next speaks essentially of prophetic works as the evidence of justification of a spirit by faith in the promises (remember, that is messianic prophecy) of God and the words of the prophets:

• James 2:21: Abraham justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Abraham justified by the work of prophesying of the Messiah.
• James 2:22: Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

Gill:”Not to justify him before God; for neither faith nor works are ever said in Scripture to justify any man; but his faith being of the right kind.”

But Gill, above, then says this kind of faith is: “a faith which works by love, it put him upon doing this work, and many others.”

At least Gill is on the right track. Abraham offered Isaac because he knew that God would resurrect his son. He believed the oracles of the Messiah to come, whom Issac represented. “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.” 

• James 2:24: (By works a man is justified (before men), and not by faith only). Since his whole discourse is on justification by appearance, not by spirit, he then gives examples of this justification before men. 
• James 2:25: Rahab was justified by works, when she had received the messengers and had sent them out another way? (Rahab justified by participating in the fulfillment of prophecy, her faith being established upon the miracles that she saw as the Jews entered the land). In Joshua 2:9-11: “And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon, and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath.”

“Well,” one might say. “since James is talking about justification before men, not before God, then may we not conclude that this prophetic principle only applies to that kind of justification?” No, this just establishes what connection that justification has to a kind of information and its handling by the spiritually just.

Let’s look again at just a few of those instances where we form our opaque opinion of justification:

Matthew 11:19 “The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.”

• The Son of Man is Jesus’ prophetic name from Daniel 7, and a symbol of the prophetic corpus about him.

Matthew 12:37: For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

• This is Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees, who accuse him of casting out devils by the Prince of Devils. They deny Jesus is the Messiah of the prophets. Therefore those who confess He is Messiah by the prophets are justified.

Luke 7:29: And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. 

• In rejection, the Pharisees and lawyers, in Luke 7:30: “rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.” This counsel is given in v.29: the prophecy of  Mal 3:1; 4:5-6. Those that believed “justified God,” or put God as just.

You can go right down the line. There is no sense of justification that is used outside of the messianic prophetic context. The most famous usage of the word inspired Luther and the Reformation.

• Habakkuk 2:4: Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. 
• Romans 1:17: For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. See above.
• Galatians 3:11: But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. See above.
• Hebrews 10:38: Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. See above.

Is this preaching a contextless faith? What kind of faith is Habakkuk talking about?:

• Habakkuk 2:1-3: I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved. And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end, it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Habakkuk is waiting, as a prophet, for the fulfillment of prophecy. His faith is in God’s prophetic Word. The just shall live by this faith. I quote from the estimable John Gill again, at length:

for vision and prophecy were to be sealed up by the Messiah, and not before; see Lu 16:16 it was true indeed with respect to the present vision or prophecy concerning the Messiah, that that was not to be fulfilled presently; there was some considerable time first to elapse; there was a time appointed for the accomplishment of it, and it would remain till that time, and then be most surely fulfilled; which would be before the sceptre departed from Judah, while the second temple was yet standing, and when Daniel’s seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, were come; which were the limited, determined, and appointed time for the Messiah’s coming, the time appointed of the Father, the fulness of time; so there was an appointed time for his coming to take vengeance on the Jewish nation, for their rejection of him, to which the apostle applies these words, Heb 10:37 and also for his spiritual coming, to visit his people in a gracious way; there is a set time to favour Zion and her children; as well as there is a day fixed for his second coming, or coming to judgment.”

There can be no sustained argument for justification without a vital connection to messianic prophecy.  

See the prophetic argument for justification beginning in Romans 3. The faith of the Jews is set as belief in the oracles in vss. 2-3. Therefore, the opposite of justification comes from that particular disbelief.

• Romans 3:21: But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
• Romans 3:24: (Justified by his Grace, his gift).
• Romans 3:25: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God; (Faith in his blood).
• Romans 3:26: Jesus the just and the justifier of those who believe, in the previous verse, the blood, which is Jesus prophesied death.
• Romans 3:28: (Justified by faith, not the Law)
• Romans 4:2: Negative. Abraham justified by works only among people but not before God. However, justified before God through his faith in God’s prophetic Word. See the entire argument for this built in chapter 4, leading to the conclusion in 5:1, below.
  • V.1: Abraham the prophet who believed God’s word pertaining to the future.
  • V.3: Abraham was justified for his faith in this Word.
  • Psalms 32:1-2.
  • V.11: Abraham reckoned righteous before circumcision as a prophecy of the future believers for whom circumcision is not required, but faith only.
  • V. 16: …to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed. “The “promise” is the prophecy.
  • V.17: He states the proleptic formula of prophecy: “A father of many nations have I made thee) before him whom he believed, even God, who giveth life to the dead, and calleth the things that are not, as though they were.”
  • V. 20: In this faith he, “looking unto the promise of God, wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God.”
  • V. 21: Again, this faith is described thus: “being fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”
  • V. 23 “Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was reckoned unto him,” but, v. 24, to ours, who also believe in the fulfillment of the prophecy of God’s raising Jesus from the dead.
• Romans 5:1: (Justified by faith)
• Romans 5:9: (Justified by his blood). How is this possible? Because the blood of Jesus is his prophesied and fulfilled death. We are justified as much by a person as we are our righteous love and association with a remarkable type of information.

Still, stuck on predestination? Look, what does that mean? It means that people were literally “prophesied,” but in that God knew before the time, not that he forced you to be justified. He also knew that you would end up in Hell, but did not force, as in prophesying you for Hell. We are like Christ because we are moral creatures. Jesus was not forced to enter space-time because he was prophesied to enter space-time. He willfully obeyed God who prophesied this for him in the sense of his will for Him. People are not coerced by birth into certain crucial actions bearing on life and death, but. Things, circumstances, objects, criteria, plans are, with which people work.  Since the 1st-century faith is in the Oracles of Christ, everyone is foreordained to justification by agreeing with God as Jesus did: agreeing to the same moral influence and obedience around the will of the father for Him in the Oracles of Christ, in which God saw Him and sees us to our justification. If your “just,” your “just,” not by God inserting a chip into you for involuntary pre-programming.

“You have to be justified by God. You can’t be justified by works, even by faith. You can’t credit yourself, only Christ.”

” In any sense?”

“No.”

“Is there a kind of work which is in the spirit for which no credit could possibly be given you if it exclusively shows the truth of Jesus? If the NT writers were only referring to “work” in the sense of the acts and products of bodily movement, you agree that the idea of “work” in the NT sense extends to those of the spirit? That this describes faith?

“I guess.”

“Faith in what?”

“Jesus”

“Jesus the Person, or Jesus the Person and the Prophetic Word which is put as his equal o knowledge?

“Ok, both?”

“So, this spiritual work of faith in the one which could never be credited to you, because it is only credited to Christ. Only he could have fulfilled it. This is true. Are you declared just, and receive the unmerited favor of God for that faith which is a kind of spiritual action, but not a “work,” in view of a faith object and justifying knowledge that is not merited to you?

Look, in closing, I want you to take a glance at Philippians 3 to see this in action. We have so objectified Christ as only a Person, and faith as only a feeling from a Person, that we can’t see anymore the obvious scriptural, revelational counterparts.

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Knowledge of Christ is put the same for Christ the person. When this happens the influence of divine knowledge, the Prophetic Word, is spoken of the same as Jesus Messiah himself: it calls, it justifies, it saves. Paul says that his mission is not just to obtain the Person of Christ, but to obtain understanding of all the OT says about Him. This is his main mission, then its propagation. He has not achieved all he can yet, but he presses on in this learning, that he may know Him, understand fully this Prophetic Word, his prophesied resurrection, his prophesied sufferings, and become, like Jesus, a symbol given to God of His Word’s surety and power. He wants to die like Jesus did because Jesus died for the Word of the Father, which is also his unmerited favor.

Next, Paul makes a brief mention of what started him down this road.

Not that I have already attained,[c] or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

The KJV used “attained” or “apprehend” or “laid hold” for καταντάω, λαμβάνω, and καταλαμβάνω. “Apprehend” catches the meaning, since Paul is talking about an understanding of divine knowledge that came from a supernatural appearance of Christ. And he nails it when he says that, from the start,  what he laid hold of or apprehended Him was exactly what he is now following after, attempting to complete its apprehension. He’s not after another supernatural appearance, he’s after what this means by the scriptures, which knowledge is the same as Christ himself.

Are we supposed to wait until we think Jesus is talking to us in our heads, an appearance in a dream, from a book by Tozer, our feelings or intuition, by assent to creeds or tradition? We sure don’t, because they are not objectively vindicating of Christ.

All these years and we have been arguing over the senses of words. That’s all. I like my sense, you like your sense. Between them, right in front of us, is the elementary solution: forget about it, and concentrate only on knowing Christ.

You and the Meaning of Justification

Now, with that out of the way, it’s simple. Justification is not about any organizational/personal benefit. The concern for the time element in justification goes to the power of the church or to the encouragement of the individual that his faith is enough for his redemption, whatever that faith is. It’s about transcendent truth, that in which God promised redemption hundreds and thousands of years in advance that were historically fulfilled by Christ. The justified are justified by knowing those who foretold it, what they said, and how it supernaturally fulfilled, and are motivated in their faith exclusively by it. Does that sound like the Church that we know?

You see, we have framed the whole question wrong. But we won’t change, because it means an earthquake. I may be an earthquake for the radically Reformed, but this is one for all of us.

The moral of the story is this: do you want, really, truly, a real Reformation?

Acts 26:22-23: Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.

So, what about gradual vs. momentary justification? What about what/who mediates it? As I said, they are of utmost importance. But it and its kind are not the main issues as we make them. Christianity is about kinds of issues first. Therefore the kinds of controversies we choose to stand for our most vital insights should be expected thought by Christ as much like what we really are in our spiritual vitals: inspired by a need and a concern for miraculous information that establishes God as a God of Truth before it attempts to explain him, or inspired only by the challenge of onerous explanations, and how pious we look supporting one over the other.

Don’t be that last one. 

 

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Romans 1: Apostasy of the General Revelation of the Gospel

What is the Word of God?: Passing by Nehushtan

The Meaning of the Cross, part 3: Persecution

 

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1. Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament, F. Wilbur Gingrich, 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1983 ↩

2. http://www.torahtimes.org/translation/dikaiow.html ↩

3. “either by the Spirit of God, making his human nature pure and holy, and preserving it from original sin and taint; and by descending on him at his baptism, thereby testifying that he was the Son of God; and by the miracles wrought by his power, which proved Jesus to be the Messiah against those that rejected him; and by his coming down upon the apostles at Pentecost; and who in their ministry vindicated him from all the aspersions cast upon him: or else it is to be understood of the divine nature of Christ, in distinction from his flesh or human nature; in the one he was manifest and put to death for the sins of his people, which were put upon him, and bore by him; and by the other he was quickened and declared to be the Son of God; and being raised from the dead, he was justified and acquitted from all the sins of his people, and they were justified in him; he had made full satisfaction to justice for them.” ↩

4. note that this last pertains to those who believe in “God,” that is, a kind of godist faith with which we are too familiar in the Church, not God through Christ ↩