Imagine you did something regrettable and ended up in prison. I’d be willing to bet that the majority of people reading this blog have done something in their life that warranted some jail time (they’ve just never been caught). For example, if you’ve ever driven a vehicle while intoxicated or intexticated (texting while driving), the only difference between you and the person in jail is that you either didn’t get caught or, fortunately for others, you didn’t hurt anyone, and then get caught. How about stealing from the government (fudging your tax returns)? I could go on and on, but this blog entry isn’t about condemning anyone, it’s about trying to get you to relate to deserving a sentence and being a prisoner.

In the spiritual realm, all human beings are born “in prison”, without any possibility of parole, justly sentenced to die there. And there is no escape, even though man continues to suppose the possibility as a function of his own efforts.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.

— Romans 5:12

Let’s go back to our opening scenario now. Imagine that tomorrow the police come to your home, tear you off of your couch, place you in handcuffs, and throw you in jail. Your sentence is handed down - life in prison without the possibility of parole. You spend the next ten years behind bars, all hope is lost.

Now, imagine that you receive notice that the judge who put you behind bars has pardoned you (why or how isn’t important). Your life sentence was lifted at the moment his gavel came down on the sounding block. Somehow, some way, the penalty for your crime is now considered by society to be paid for. You are flabbergasted because in the ten years you’ve been in prison, you’ve acknowledged your guilt and resigned to the fact that it was a fair sentence you had received in the first place. So this new development in your case is simply incredible - it has to be by the grace and mercy of God! And it is.

You become excited beyond belief, imagining all the family contact you’ve missed and have longed for…all the little things you’ve missed…you can almost feel the sheets against your skin in the bed at your home…almost taste the fudge ripple ice cream sliding down your throat. The sense of anticipation is euphoric. You keep asking the jailers, “When am I going to be released?”

Days turn into weeks, weeks into months…and still you sit confounded in your prison cell. The envelope containing the notice of pardon is as thin and fragile as rice paper from all the times you’ve opened it to see if somehow someone’s made an awful mistake. The letter inside has suffered numerous wrinkles from your tears having fallen on it, though they have changed from tears of joy to what now can only be described as despair. The letter is signed by the judge, there’s no mistake…but there you sit…judicially set free, but in all reality, still in prison. The scene is preposterous,  claustrophobic even.

This is analogous to the way some people describe salvation. They propound the idea that salvation consists of a gavel coming down in the supreme court of Heaven and that is it. “Freedom” under this concept of salvation consists of merely a forensic detail, a declaration from a Judge, akin to the good news in the fictitious letter described above. However, the Bible states that true freedom isn’t merely a statement made by a judge (e.g., our Judge in Heaven); rather it is a reality that one is meant to enjoy for all of eternity. After all, at salvation, we are given eternal life.

To say that salvation is merely a judicial issue is like saying to a prisoner, “The judge has pardoned you, but you are not able to leave the prison.” In other words, this version of salvation is quite frustrating in that it supposes that while “on paper” you are free, in reality, you aren’t. How is that “being saved”? It isn’t.

Imagine throwing a pardon letter on a corpse and saying, “Get up, walk out of prison, where freedom awaits you!” The problem is that dead things are unable to walk out of prison, or anywhere - heck, they can’t do anything in the way of enjoying freedom. A person must be “made alive” in Christ, made capable of walking, if they are to have any hope of actually experiencing their freedom.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

— 1 Corinthians 15:22

When Paul wrote, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free” (Galatians 5:1), he was reminding the Galatians of all that salvation means to a believer. It doesn’t just mean the gavel has come down in Heaven and our Judge has lifted our sentence. Salvation includes everything the Bible tells us it does, including that we are made “new creatures” (2 Corinthians 5:17), no longer unable to walk out the prison gate. The manner in which God changes us, by grace, far exceeds simply receiving a pardon. Salvation means deliverance from spiritual death (a precondition that precludes a person from actually “being” free because they are actually dead). A saved person is a new person, made alive, able to walk, able to experience their newfound freedom.

When God says, “You are justified,” it is a declaration regarding a believer’s righteousness. When He says, “I’ve made you a new creature, alive in Christ,” it is a different statement regarding a believer actually having been literally changed.

To say that salvation is merely receiving a pardon from God is to subtract from God’s gracious work at salvation. If this were true, what are we to say to the prisoner who’s unable to walk out because all they have are the words, “you are free” on official letterhead, but they remain unchanged? “Good luck???”

The term justification is forensic, referring to the proceedings in a court of judicature, and signifies the declaring a person righteous according to law…

If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked (Deuteronomy 25:1). Here it is evident that to justify the righteous, signifies not to make him righteous but to adjudge him to be so, just as to condemn the wicked is not to make him wicked but to declare him to be so…

There are then two constituent parts in this justification; there is the pardon of sin and the acceptance of our persons; a removal of guilt and condemnation and a right to life.

— Charles Spurgeon

As Spurgeon wrote above, “to justify the righteous, signifies not to make him righteous but to adjudge him to be so.” A judge’s job is to recognize righteousness when he see it, and then declare it. A person standing before his bench either is or isn’t righteous already. The judge is merely there to decide the truth, and, strictly speaking, isn’t responsible for that person’s righteousness. They judge impartially based on what they know about the person.

Maybe the easiest way to understand this is to go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, even before the Fall. Adam and Eve were created righteous. They were not only declared righteous, they (their persons) were wholly righteous. It was who they were, their very natures, as people. They were alive to God, experiencing the physical, emotional, and spiritual blessings of being in perfect fellowship with their Creator.

At the Fall, all of that changed. God warned them, “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die [die physically and spiritually]” (Genesis 2:17). When Adam and Eve sinned, their natures were changed. In an instant, they (their persons) became sinners, having sinful natures in place of the ones they were created with. They lost perfect, personal fellowship with their Creator. They had become unrighteous, so God declared them so (the opposite of when God declares a believer justified).

The point is that the Fall in the Garden began with man’s very nature changing. The declaration of unrighteousness by God was a function of this fall, but the declaration is not the fall itself. Likewise, when God heals the wound between Himself and mankind, in order for Him to declare a person righteous (justified), He must change them, their very nature. And He does.

You see, it’s as simple as it sounds, my friends. Man fell, was changed for the worse, and God declared him unrighteous. Our merciful God solved the problem, making a way for us to be reconciled to Him. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16) - notice there’s no mention of justification in this verse, only the gift of eternal life, which is something very different. When a person is saved, God changes them, gives them a new nature, makes them righteous again (this time forever), declares them justified, and gives them His own life, eternal life. What was “unzipped” in the Garden, is “zipped” back up through God’s gracious plan for salvation.

Thanks be to God for His grace…all of it! Shame on mankind for meddling with any of it, whether he is adding to or subtracting from His work in saving mankind. God is not only Judge, but He is also the One who is able to change the very nature of fallen man. He isn’t just the One who declares a person justified, He’s also the One who makes a believer righteous in the first place!

I don’t want to attempt to elaborate much more on this, hence my sincerest effort to “keep it simple”. I believe, as all of you should, that there are machinations which occur supernaturally at salvation that simply cannot be adequately described, no matter how elegant or detailed the timeline. And I’m happy about this, because it demands the one thing that fallen man cannot rationalize - faith. I prefer faith over any further explanation for fear my head might explode! I love that God says, “Trust Me, when I saved you, I changed you, made you a new creature, made you alive in Christ Jesus, gave you His righteousness, declared you justified, and gave you everlasting life.” I thank God that I’ve had no part in any of this good work in me.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

— Romans 1:16-17

Love in Christ,

Ed Collins