JUSTIFICATION

The other Soteriological word James ironically draws upon is

"Justify."  This is reasonable since he has already started

down  an ironic path with the word "save."  As with the

multiple ironies James compounded in his description of the

tongue (James 3:3-12), he will now compound multiple

ironies in the "faith and works" controversy.  As with the

word "saved," James does not refer to "justification by

works" in a soteriological sense either.

The most common word on the planet earth is "O.K."

It is said to be in virtually every modern language.  And this,

not coincidently, is the essential meaning of the terms

"justify" ("dik-ai-awe-o" in Greek) and justification ("dik-ai-

awe-sun-ay" in Greek).  It is the judgment of one person

about the state of things, or the quality of another person or

object.  American astronauts popularized the term, just before

launch, of systems being "A.O.K." (all O.K.).  Justification is

the declaration that a situation, an object, or another person is

"All Right" or "O.K."

Justification before God therefore, is basically the

declaration of God about the legal standing of the believer

 . . . specifically, that one who has believed on Christ, and

therefore accept the lawful payment for sin, is now "not

guilty" or "all right" in the estimation of God.  Before the

reformation, the understanding of justification before God

went in a first wrong direction.  It was gradually perverted to

mean a process by which God transformed someone's life to

an acceptable level of holiness by which they could attain

eternal life.  This is called justification by works.

The reformers returned to the original Greek language

to correct the meaning of justification to its linguistic roots,

and its true meaning.  We can be legally declared "not guilty"

before God through faith in Christ because the legal

requirements of the law were met by Jesus Christ.

Specifically, the law demanded a payment for sin, and Jesus

was punished for the sins of the world in our place.  One does

not have to get "better and better" in order to attain to eternal

life.  It is the gift of God through Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, there is a second truth about the word

"justify" that did not become so widely known as a result of

the reformation.  Just as with the term "saved" does not

automatically refer to salvation from hell, the person before

whom one is justified is not automatically God.  The state of

being "all right" or the declaration that someone is "all right"

is according to the MEASURE and STANDARDS of the one

doing the declaring!!  And that is not always God.  The

declarant is whoever is making the declaration that someone

is "all right."  But, as with the word "save," major sects

within Christendom, and prominent teachers, though usually

knowing this academically, failed to apply this truth to James

2.  Rather than correcting their misinterpretation of James 2,

they compounded and reinforced their error.

An example of justification before someone other than

God is illustrated  told in the story of Oscar Schindler.  Oscar

Schindler was a Gentile, and a member of the Nazi party

during World War II.  He devoted his life to saving Jews

during the holocaust, and maintained his membership in the

Nazi party to put him in a position where he was able to save

Jews.  In spite of the fact that Schindler had technically been

a "Nazi," the state of Israel declared Oscar Schindler to be a

"righteous" man.  By this, they did not mean that he was

going to heaven.  I do not know his relationship to Jesus

Christ.  Neither was the state of Israel saying anything about

this.  They were simply saying that "Oscar Schindler may

have been a "Nazi" by party affiliation, but he maintained

this affiliation to put himself in a position where he could

rescue Jews from the holocaust.  By the standards by which

we, the nation of Israel measures someone, Oscar Schindler

was 'all right'."  And so, the nation of Israel publicly declared

this.

The Bible confirms that the standards for justification

before God are not the same as the standards for justification

before men.  In Romans 4:2 we read:

"For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath

whereof to glory; but not  before God."

As with Oscar Schindler, Abraham, or any other man,

can be justified by their works.  But not before God.  In the

Greek language, there are different grammatical nuances of

verbs called "moods," such as the indicative mood, the

subjunctive mood and optitive mood.  Some expressions are

actual, others reflect growing levels of theoretical possibility

or unlikelihood.  In the Greek construction of Romans 4:2

quoted above, the conditionality requires that this is not an

impossible hypothetical situation, but actually happens.

Abraham, as any man, really was justified by his works.   But

not before God.  Abraham was justified by his works for the

same reason that Oscar Schindler was justified by his works.

Their works justified them in the eyes of their fellow man as

good and decent people.  But we don't need the Bible to tell

us the obvious.  Any person who has ever told someone that

they are "all right" or "O.K.," has exercised their ability to

"judge" (in a manner of speaking) someone according to their

own personal standards.

There is only one Being in the universe whose standard

of justification is so profound that it required that sin be paid

for by the death of His Son, and required that men honored

His Son by trusting in his payment for their sins before He

would declare them "not guilty" of their sins.

For the rest of us, we generally judge a person on the

character and integrity of his life in general, how he treats his

fellow man, and how he treats us.  Imagine that I visited you

at your house, and upon departing, I forget a piece of

luggage.  You drive 50 miles to catch me at the airport or

train station before I depart, and hand me my piece of

luggage.  I would be inclined to say to you, "Gosh, you're all

right!"  By this statement, I am making no judgment on

whether you are saved or lost.  I have no way of knowing

what you believe about Jesus Christ by returning my

luggage.  Someone who does a good and kind work may be a

good and sincere Baptist, a good and kind Buddhist, or a kind

and upright Jew.  Traveling fifty miles out of the way to

return my luggage does not tell me about their faith in God.

It tells me about their sacrificial character.  But as humans,

the standard by which we judge another man is their

character.  And by the standards of which I measure friends,

when someone travels 50 miles out of the way to return my

luggage, and if this action is consistent with other character

signs I have seen about them, they are all right with me.

In light of the above discussion, let's continue in James

chapter 2.  We shall see that James is never talking about

justification before God based on human works.  It is no

where in the context.

Chapter 15: Justification and the Epistle of James