It is the notion of
venial and
mortal sin and justification that can be lost underlying these sort of Romanist errors.
Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein God pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight,
only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and
received by faith alone.
"Far too frequently we fail to entertain the gravity of this fact. Hence the reality of our sin and the reality of the wrath of God upon us for our sin do not come into our reckoning. This is the reason why the grand article of justification does not ring the bells in the innermost depths of our spirit" (Src: John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955).
Our realization, spoken of by Murray above, and well understood by Augustine, is solely due to God’s grace and conviction. Only then do we realize what utter sinfulness and pollution dwell in the very depths of our nature can we learn what it means to be justified.
“
{I}t is God who justifies" (Romans 5:33). Justification is that which we do not and cannot effect for ourselves. It is "
not any religious exercise in which we engage however noble and good that religious exercise may be" (Murray,
ibid.). Underscoring this fact is another. Justification does not mean that one is to
be, or be made, or
become inherently good, holy, or upright. To the contrary, it is the
sinner who is justified, and at the very instant that he is declared just by God, he remains inherently sinful and unworthy.
Justification is not a term meaning to
make a person holy. Rather,
justification is a legal declaration. It is in this sense that we find it in Scripture. "
If there is a dispute between men, and they come to court, that the judges may judge them," it is their duty to "
justify the righteous and condemn the wicked" (Deuteronomy 25:1). Obviously, if the word
justify meant
to actually make righteous, it would be hard to see that the Lord would condemn such. What is more pleasing to God than for the wicked to forsake wickedness and be righteous? Thus, if the human judge cannot justify the wicked, then neither can the term
justify mean to make the wicked man just. The word
justify means to declare, rather than to constitute, him what he is.
When the publicans justified God (Luke 7:29), they did not make him just; they only declared him to be just. And conversely, when the judge condemns the wicked (Deuteronomy 25:1), the judge does not make him wicked—the judge only declares that he is wicked.
Justification, like condemnation, is a judicial declaration. And therefore justification is said to be judicial. It concerns that judgment which is declared.
”The distinction is like that of the distinction between the act of a surgeon and the act of a judge. The surgeon, when he removes an inward cancer, does something in us. That is not what a judge does-he gives a verdict regarding our judicial status” (Murray, ibid.).
Therein is the marvel of justification. God does what a human judge cannot and must not do. God declares righteous those who are really ungodly (Romans 4:5; 3:19-24). If men were to do so it would be abomination (Proverbs 17:15). But God does so and yet is not unrighteous in doing it. How does God do so? God provides a just and legal basis upon which to declare the unrighteous to be just. And he does this by
imputation (that is,
to reckon, think, or regard). By imputation of the righteousness of Christ God is able to cause the sinner to legally possess a righteousness and to be freed from unrighteousness even while a sinner. And having thus constituted sinners righteous, he is able to declare them to be such.
The Protestant rightly speaks of
double imputation because of Christ's active (perfectly obeying God's law) and passive (fully suffering the penalty of the law against sin) obedience. God regards his righteousness to be ours, and our guilt to be his. Without imputation of both (our guilt to him and his righteousness to us) there would be no basis for justification. But upon this basis God is able to declare us righteous in his sight. And this declarative act is justification.
From this it clearly emerges that the sole
ground of our justification is the obedience of Christ. Our justification cannot be, in any sense, our own righteousness. Paul expresses this wonderfully: "
I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count then) as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith" (Phil. 3:8-9).
One of the basic errors of Popery is confusion of justification and sanctification, that is, between legal and inherent righteousness. For Rome teaches that at certain times (e.g., immediately after baptism, or reception of one of the other sacraments) a person is
just. However what is meant is that the person
is actually made internally holy
and not just legally righteous before God. This holiness, according to Rome, can then be partially or even totally destroyed by sin,
venial or mortal.
For the Romanist, a person may cease to be just. He must again be justified through sacramental grace. And on it goes in a constant cycle on the Romanist’s
sacramental treadmill.
For the Roman Catholic, sin nullifies sacramental grace, and then sacramental grace nullifies sin. This is a doctrine that gives no peace (Romans 5:1). A person can never be certain of his standing with God. But more than this, it does not make sense. For if sacramental grace actually produced inward holiness, then why would that person ever sin again, if justification meant perfect inward holiness, then there could be no further sin, because a "
perfect tree will bring forth perfect fruit" (see Luke 6:43-45).
Do justified sinners (that is, true believers) who commit suicide end up in hell? No. Their justification is not something they can revoke for they did not declare themselves justified in the first place.
If a person winds up in Hell after suicide, their destination was Hell even if they had died at a ripe old age from other causes. These persons were never regenerated believers in the first place. From God's perspective, their eternal destiny was never a question of their own contingent choices, for none of those given by the Father for whom Our Lord explicitly came to redeem will be lost to Him.
AMR
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