PREFACE
The following definition will clarify the scriptural doctrine of justification.
JUSTIFICATION—‘In theology, remission of sin and absolution from guilt and punishment; or an act of free grace by which God pardons the sinner and accepts him as righteous, on account of the atonement of Christ’ (Noah Webster, 1828). A sinner is justified when God declares him to be righteous.
ALL MEN NEED GOD’S JUSTIFICATION
None of Adam’s natural descendants are righteous—For by the first man Adam “sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5:12). The word of the Lord plainly declares: “…There is none righteous, no, not one…There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18); the psalmist David wrote: “The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” (Psalm 14:1-3) The prophet Isaiah confirmed: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)