The courtroom

Justification is a courtroom word. In the Old Testament a judge was to "justify the righteous and condemn the wicked" (Deuteronomy 25:1): to hear the case and declare which party was in the right. So to be justified is to be declared righteous, to be acquitted, to have right standing with the court. To understand what that means for you, you have to see the courtroom first.

The setting is God's court. God is the judge. And the case against humanity is not close. "There is no one who is righteous, not even one" (Romans 3:10). Every mouth is silenced, and "the whole world may be held accountable to God". That includes the religious, because "no human will be justified before him by deeds prescribed by the law"; the law does not fix you, it shows you what is wrong. Isaiah goes further: even our righteous deeds, our best efforts, "are like a filthy cloth".

In other courts a man can pay his fine, or serve his time, and walk out justified. Not in this one. The sentence for sin is death, and there is nothing you can put on the table to cover it. Nobody could pay to justify themselves from the condemnation that sin brought.

Sit in that for a moment, because the next session only makes sense if you have. You were guilty. The judge was right. And you could not pay.