I’ve been doing a series of posts about what I am getting from a book I am reading: Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer. (For earlier posts on the subject, see this and this. and this.) He makes the point that the term “justification” is not just a theological term. Rather, it is a word and a concept that we use all the time, and that, in fact, is a major preoccupation, going deep into the human psychology: We keep being accused and condemned, so we continually have to “justify” ourselves, proving that we are right, insisting how good we are, getting defensive, accusing and condemning our critics in retaliation. We want approval. We want to be accepted. We want to be considered good, including when we aren’t.
I think the comments have showed some misunderstanding. I wanted to draw your attention to a comment I just made to that first post: “It isn’t that this is a bad thing. We HAVE to do it, given who and what we are. The point is that this necessity of justifying points to our underlying need for what Christ does: Justify us freely.”
What I am getting out of Bayer is that when Jesus justifies us, we no longer have to justify ourselves. Of course, we still will, our old nature being still with us, but we don’t have to. God’s law accuses and condemns us, but we have God’s approval by means of the Gospel of Christ. We are accepted. God considers us good even when we aren’t.
Realizing this can free us from thinking like we have have to justify God, or justify other people, or justify our existence. The kind of life that this freedom opens up is living by faith.
You can now take issue with what I say. Whereupon I will insist that I am still right. And I will accuse you of being wrong, whereupon you will insist that you are right. Go ahead.
Consider that this kind of exchange–the typical blog discussion–testifies to our mutual need for Christ to justify us, which brings along with it the reason to mutually forgive each other. People, of course, can still differ and can still argue–again, there is nothing wrong with that, as such–but we don’t have to take all of that so seriously in light of Christ justifying both of us.
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