If justification occurs at a moment in time, as Scripture clearly teaches, our self-righteousness and fear of condemnation are eliminated simultaneously as God, at the first moment of faith, declares us righteous apart from our works.

It has been said that justification is the article by which the church is standing or falling. This statement is usually attributed to Martin Luther, whose actual statement is pretty close to the popular paraphrase.

Others within the Reformed tradition have affirmed the truth highlighted in this statement, including Westminster professor, John Murray (1898-1975). The point of the statement is to underscore the spiritual and theological importance of justification: if the church is unclear about her standing with God, then spiritual life and vitality will quickly vanish.

In this article, I want to focus on the essential truth that justification is an instantaneous declaration. I will begin with some preliminary definitions.

A Legal Declaration

The judicial guilt of our sin places us in a condemned status before God. His law condemns us because we have broken it through original sin and personal sin (Rom 1:18ff; 3:10-18; 5:12-21). What we need, therefore, is a change of this condemned status. This remedy “must be a legal declaration concerning our relationship to God’s laws, stating that we are completely forgiven and not liable to punishment.”¹ Both the New Testament (Luke 18:14; Rom 3:21-30; 5:1; Gal 2:16) and the Old Testament (Deut 25:1; 1 Kings 8:32; 2 Chron 6:23; Job 27:5; Prov 17:5) indicate that justification is a declarative act.

Charles Hodge (1797-1878) defines justification well:

But if we take the word in the sense in which the Scriptures so often use it, as expressing relation to justice, then when God pronounces the sinner righteous or just, He simply declares that his guilt is expiated, that justice is satisfied, that He has the righteousness which justice demands. This is precisely what Paul says when he says that God “justifieth the ungodly.”²

Wayne Grudem offers this concise definition:

Just what is justification? We may define it as follows: Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which he (1) thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us, and (2) declares us to be righteous in his sight.³

An Instantaneous Declaration

Regarding the “time” element of the declaration, it is an instantaneous declaration. That is, at the very moment a sinner places true faith in Jesus, God declares that sinner fully righteous. It is important to maintain that justification occurs at the moment of faith for two reasons.

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