“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1)

What does this mean? What is it to be justified?

Many think it is a sort of half-way house to perfect favor with God, a substitute for real righteousness. Their idea is that if one will only belief what the Bible says, he is to be counted as righteous when he is not. This is a great mistake.

Justification has to do with the law. The term means making just. To be just means to be righteous. To justify one, to make him just, is to make him a doer of the law.

Being justified by faith is simply being made a doer of the law by faith. Not only have all sinned, but “the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7). Since man has sinned, it is impossible that any amount of subsequent obedience could make up for that sin. The fact that one does not steal today does not do away with the fact that he stole something yesterday, nor does it lessen his guilt. The law will condemn a man for a theft committed last year, even though he may have refrained from stealing ever since.

Further, it is impossible for any one by nature to be subject to the law of God. He cannot do what the law requires. “In me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells (Rom. 7:18). The fault is not in the law, but in the man.

But what the law cannot do, the grace of God does. It justifies a man. What kind of men does it justify? - Sinners, of course, for they are the only ones who stand in need of justification. So we read, “ To him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). It does not mean that God glosses over one’s fault so that he is counted righteous when he is really wicked; but it means that He makes that person a doer of the law. The moment God declares an ungodly man righteous, that instand that man is a doer of the law.

Waggoner, Signs of the Times, May 1, 1893