In Rom 3:24, we read:
Being justified as a
gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (NASB)
Pop quiz: what is the tense of the verb
"to justify" here?
If Paul was a proto-Protestant, one would expect him to use some type of past tense to describe the "justification" of these believers. However, the verb tense of δικαιοω here is the (plural) present passive participle (δικαιούμενοι). These Christians are being justified; they have not simply been (once-for-all) justified.
Commenting on the theology of this
passage, Fitzmyer wrote:
24. yet all are justified freely. Lit.,
“(but) being justified freely.” I.e., are “made upright” gratuitously through
God’s powerful declaration of acquittal. Human beings thus achieve the status
of uprightness before God’s tribunal which the Jew sought by observing the
deeds of the law. Now human beings find that this status is not achieved by
something within their own power or measured by their own merits. It comes to
humanity through an unmerited dispensation of God himself, who has taken the
initiative. The sinful human being is not only “declared upright,” but is
“made upright” (as in 5:19), for the sinner’s condition has changed. (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans:
A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 33; New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2008], 347, emphasis in hold added)
Response to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness (a review of John Kauer, “Are You Considered as Good as Jesus? The Imputation Approach” in Eric Johnson and Sean McDowell, eds. Sharing the Good News with Mormons [Eugene, Oreg.: Harvest House Publishers, 2018), 273-81, 339]; also discusses Rom 4:1-8, a common "proof-text" for Reformed soteriology)
Refuting Christina Darlington on the Nature of "Justification"
