Because Christ Was Justified, We Can Be

How Christ’s resurrection justifies him so that in him and not in us, we become the righteousness of God.

Jesus our Lord was “raised for our justification,” proclaims Paul (Rom 4:25). And when Christ rose, he was “justified by the Spirit” (1 Tim 3:16). Notice that Paul ties justification to resurrection. His words do not mean the cross plays no role in justification, but they should inform our biblical category of justification by faith.

For example, when Paul speaks of being found in Christ so that he might have his righteousness, he once again cites the power of the resurrection:

“I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead (Phil 3:8–11).”

So why was Jesus justified in his resurrection, and why does our justification that depends on faith centre on the resurrection?

The answer begins with defining the word justification itself, and it terminates in Christ’s public justification that alone guarantees our justification before God’s tribunal.

Defining Justification

As the Greek dictionary BDAG explains, the verb to justify (δικαιόω) generally means to show justice, to render a favourable verdict, to free from obligations, or to demonstrate moral goodness (BDAG, 249). Now, all of these definitions share a semantic range that includes showing or declaring that someone is just.

So no matter what theological position we take on the question of justification, we need to realize the biblical word has a fairly simple range of meanings.

Imputed Righteousness

Before explaining the connection to Jesus and resurrection, I first want to point out that Paul also teaches that God justifies the ungodly by faith (Rom 4:3, 5). Based on Genesis 15:6, wherein God justifies Abraham by faith and imputes that faith as righteousness, Paul reasons that the same is true for Christians who follow in Abraham’s footsteps. Thus, “to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:5).

This righteousness in Christ is not in us. “Not having a righteousness of my own,” we find a righteousness that is “in him” (Phil 3:9). Hence, “in [Christ] we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). Put more directly, “you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30).

So by being in Christ, we have a righteousness that is in him and not in us. What word describes this reality?

If we say that we gain a habit of justice by being in Christ, we miss the emphasis that we have Christ’s righteousness, not ours.

If we say Christ pours his righteousness into us, we might do very well; yet the Bible indicates that we are in Christ and thus have his righteousness because we have all of Christ. So pouring or infusion probably is not the best metaphor.

So what is? Remember the definition of the word justification above? To be justified means to be declared or shown to be righteous. Now, we already know that before Christ, we are not shown to be righteous. We have no righteousness in us, so we need Christ’s shown righteousness that inheres in him but not in us.

So then we have to say that God declares us righteous because Christ has shown himself to be righteous; and we are found in him by faith, so God sees us as Christ. We are righteous not in us but in him.

One word that functions as a shibboleth or symbol that eliminates the inappropriate definitions above and embraces the appropriate one is the word imputation. To impute means to ascribe something as true of a person because of another. We are righteous because of another, Christ. We “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).

The gift comes to us by way of the Spirit uniting us to Christ. And it comes by the redemptive work that is “in Christ Jesus.” In him alone do we find this righteousness that justifies us before God through imputation.

Since the word justification means declaring or showing righteousness, Christ showed his righteousness in himself during his earthly sojourn. And God reckoned us just because of his merits, because we are in him.

Declarative Righteousness

Yet since the word justification means declaring or showing righteousness, it can also speak to a demonstration of justice or even a release from just demands (e.g., Acts 13:38–39). So when Paul says that Jesus our Lord “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom 4:25), he means that Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification—that is, for our declaration of being just because Christ himself was justified in the resurrection.

This latter justification means, as the word indicates, a public demonstration or vindication of what is true of Christ: he is righteous. Hence, Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:16: “He was manifested in the flesh, justified by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.” Notice the public setting. The cosmos has seen Christ’s justification.

Richard Gaffin explains, “The constitutive, transforming action of resurrection is specifically forensic in character. It is Christ’s justification” (Resurrection and Redemption, 124).

Or as Geerhardus Vos puts it:

“Christ’s resurrection was the de facto declaration of God in regard to his being just. His quickening bears in itself the testimony of his justification. God, through suspending the forces of death operating on Him, declared that the ultimate, the supreme consequence of sin had reached its termination. In other words, resurrection had annulled the sentence of condemnation” (Pauline Eschatology, 1930: 151).

The resurrection shows Christ to be what he already was: righteous. The resurrection proves it. Hence, he is qualified as the Just One to be justified before God. We need that demonstration too, so that we might stand before God as righteous. But because in us we have no righteousness that can withstand God’s tribunal, we need a righteousness that is not in us but in Christ to stand before God’s tribunal. That is why we need an imputed righteousness.

Christ was justified for our sake, so that he might impute his righteousness to us by faith, which we partake in through the Spirit uniting us to the glorified flesh of Christ.

Conclusion

Justification means showing or demonstrating righteousness. Christ did this in his whole life. His resurrection justifies him, so that the whole cosmos knows he is righteous by the power of an incorruptible life (Heb 7:16). We know that there is a righteousness in him that the entire cosmos cannot gainsay.

This public justification gives us absolute trust that by faith we can be found justified in Christ alone. Apart from his justification, we would never be justified by faith. But he is the Righteous One, and so we can by faith partake of all that he is. And in him, we can find a righteousness that is not our own.

We call that finding imputation because to impute means to be righteous because of another. In this case, we are righteous because of Christ, who was first publicly justified so that we might be justified by faith. Put simply, Jesus our Lord was “raised for our justification,” so that we might be the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor 5:21).

---

Note: I have solely focused on justification, but it should be clear that union with Christ means his entire life is ours. And this union communicates much more than just a declared righteousness. I narrowed my scope of writing above for clarity, not because it was even close to describing the whole reality of being found in Christ.