What does Paul mean that we are now justified?

Explanation:

When Paul refers to our justification in Romans 5:9, he puts the verb to justify in the aorist tense and passive voice. He so indicates that our justification is a past event that has happened to us. So in the past, justification happened to us by the blood of Christ. Given that justification is a past event that happens to us by the blood of Christ, we can detect that justification is a declaration. That is, we can detect that justification has to do with being declared, in the past, not guilty. ⁴

Counterargument:

All we can detect from the verb tense and voice is that whatever justification is, it is something that happened to us in the past. Still, that justification is something that happened to us in the past does not tell us what justification is, and in particular, it does not tell us that to be justified is to be declared not guilty. So we cannot conclude from the verb tense and voice that to be justified is to be declared not guilty.

Response to counterargument:

It is important to notice that we are justified in the past by the blood of Christ. That is important because the blood of Christ highlights that Christ’s death on the cross is related to the Old Testament sacrificial system. Notably, Paul has already referred to the blood of Christ in Romans 3:25 when he writes that God put Christ forth as an atoning sacrifice by his blood. ⁵ Now, the term behind atoning sacrifice can refer to the mercy seat in the Old Testament, which is where the blood of the sacrifice was poured on the Day of Atonement when the people were declared not guilty because of the animal sacrifice. That we are justified in the past as something that happens to us by the atoning sacrifice of Christ, which is connected to the Day of Atonement and the mercy seat, strongly suggests that we are justified in the sense that we are declared not guilty.

Explanation:

Paul uses an ancient rhetorical device in Romans 5:9 to indicate that justification is a past declaration that we are not guilty. The ancient device Paul deploys is known as arguing from the greater to the lesser, which he does with the term much more.⁶ The argument is from the greater to the lesser in the following sense. Paul begins with the greater, which is the fact that we are now justified, which is evidence for the lesser, that we will escape from the wrath of God (Romans 5:9). In other words, the greater difficulty is in justifying us, which costs Jesus his life, while the lesser is the fact that if God is willing to give up his Son’s life to justify us, we will be saved from his wrath. So what does this imply about justification? It implies that justification is a past declaration that we are not guilty, and because we have been declared not guilty in the past, we will be saved from the wrath of God in the future.

Counterargument:

While it might be that Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser, this argument style does nothing to promote the notion that to be justified is to be declared not guilty. Rather, it simply implies that whatever it is to be justified, being justified is the more difficult task than being saved from God’s wrath.

Response to counterargument:

The problem with this counterargument is that we have a sense of what justification is, even aside from the context of Romans 5:9. And when we combine our sense of what justification is, with the logic of arguing from the greater to the lesser in Romans 5:9, we can see that Paul has in mind the declaration of being not guilty. For the term δικαιόω (to justify) is related to the noun δικαιοσύνη, which means righteousness (Romans 3:5). And we know from Romans 3:22 that the righteousness of God has to do with God reconciling us through faith in Jesus Christ. Of course, to be made reconciled with God in the past is to re-enter a relationship with God, which can only happen if one is declared not guilty of sin. So being justified in the past has to do with being declared not guilty of sin. This makes sense of the greater to lesser argument Paul makes in Romans 5:9. For it makes sense that being declared not guilty of sin is the greater task, and since this has been accomplished through Christ’s blood, we are sure to be saved from God’s wrath.

Explanation:

Paul writes that we have been justified by the blood of Christ. That we are justified by the blood of Christ hearkens back to Romans 3:24–25, where Paul has explained that God put Christ forth as an atoning sacrifice.⁷ This language of atoning sacrifice is important to note because it correlates that we are justified with the Old Testament sacrificial system.

One important thing we know about the Old Testament sacrificial system is that through that system the covenant with God was established. ⁸ Now Paul says that through the blood of Christ we have been justified. Given the sacrificial language used in connection with our being justified, likely Paul is saying that by Christ’s sacrifice, we are justified in the sense that a new covenant has been established, in which the Gentiles are included. So to be justified is to be included in the new covenant.

Counterargument:

While there is a strong and important connection between the language of sacrifice and the justification that Christ effected, it is hard to conclude that the sacrificial language implies that to be justified is to be included in the covenant. For we know from the Old Testament how the sacrificial system was supposed to work. In particular, we know that the sacrifice of atonement was meant to show that the people were forgiven for their sins. In other words, the sacrifice of atonement declared the people not guilty. Further, we know that the blood of the sacrifice of atonement was poured on the mercy seat, and the Greek term used for the mercy seat in the Septuagint is ἱλαστήριον. Importantly, Paul refers to Jesus as the ἱλαστήριον in Romans 3:25, correlating Jesus’ sacrifice with the place where the sins of the people were forgiven. So, the sacrificial language does not lead us to take justification as being included in the covenant, but being declared not guilty.

The weakness of this view is that it confuses the means and content of reconciliation with the promise of reconciliation. The means and content of reconciliation have to do with Jesus Christ’s sacrifice establishing our justification. On the other hand, the promise of reconciliation is the covenant that God established with his people, which ensured that a permanent means and content of justification would transpire.