Joint Declaration: 1. Biblical Message of Justification
into the realm of "sanctification," the narrower sense of our lives in faith. And in this, the paragraph intimates, is also the power of God, who works through us through His Word to carry out.
It is interesting that in the previous two paragraphs, the Old and New Testaments were oversimplified as the Law and Gospel. This paragraph reveals that Law and Gospel exist in both the Old and New Testaments.
"In Paul's letters, God's righteousness is also power for those who have faith" is a phrase, again, with vagueness. Is God's righteousness then the power to change our lives so we can fix our own messes? Does God's righteousness only work if you have faith-meaning you have to have faith before you can have God's righteousness? While this might seem like semantics of language, recognize that the incipient message is that you have an obligation and salvation depends upon something you do. What comfort, then, is the Gospel to the guilt-ridden and guilt-racked soul? Likewise "[j]ustification becomes ours through Christ Jesus 'whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith'" also leaves one thinking, "Hey, I've got to have faith before God can justify me." This is not scriptural. God comes to us while we were dead in our sins-(Ephesians 2:1) "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins" and (Colossians 2:13) "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive Christ. He forgave us all our sins." Obviously, dead people can do nothing. Every activity of a dead person is passive-and so is our justification.
11. Justification is the forgiveness of sins (cf. Romans 3:23-25; Acts 13:39; Luke 18:14), liberation from the dominating power of sin and death (Romans 5:12-21) and from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:10-14). It is acceptance into communion with God: already now, but then fully in God's coming kingdom (Romans 5:1-2). It unites with Christ and with his death and resurrection (Romans 6:5). It occurs in the reception of the Holy Spirit in Baptism and incorporation into the one body (Romans 8:1-2, 9-11; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13). All this is from God alone, for Christ's sake, by grace, through faith in "the Gospel of God's Son" (Romans 1:1-3).
This paragraph is well worded. For the most part, it is accurate. But one area where the wording can be interpreted either way.
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