Whatever may be the
etymology of the word “just,” it is certain that justice is conformity to the
supreme rule of our conduct. Expressing the normal relation between the human and
the divine will, it identifies itself, for the Jew, with the complete observance
of the Law, which is regarded as the adequate enunciation of the will of God. It
includes, therefore, the entire moral life of man. “Just” is synonymous with “right,
good, perfect, innocent”; and its antitheses are “wicked, impious, sinful.”
Everyone is agreed on this point, and the controversy between Protestants and
Catholics turns on the meaning of “justifying,” not on that of “just.”
Protestants maintain that to justify (δικαιουν), in spite of its
causative form, means to declare just, but not to make just. They
say that this is the usual meaning of the word among secular writers, and that
the verbs of this form are not causative when they are derived from an
adjective that expresses a moral quality.
To this reasoning
there would be much to say. We know that the idea of a God sanctifying man was
completely unknown to the pagans. This is why, in secular authors, “to justify”
signifies always “to declare just, to regard or treat as just, to judge,” and
by extension “to approve” and by a euphemism “to condemn or punish.” It will be
the same in the Bible whenever the verb has a finite being as subject; for it
belongs to God alone to confer justice. But when the subject is God or man
himself aided by God, the verb “to justify” may quite well retain its causative
value. Most often, it is true, the part of God in the justification of the
sinner is expressed by grace and mercy, and when the just man, whether innocent
or repentant, is brought before the tribunal of the sovereign Judge, the
justification is only a favourable sentence or a verdict of “no case.” But it
is sometimes otherwise. (Fernand Prat, The Theology of Saint Paul, 2
vols. [trans. John L. Stoddard; Westminster, Md.: The Newman Bookshop, 1926], 1:169-70)
The Psalmist (lxxii,
13) justified his heart (εδικαιωσα
την καρδιαν μου),
which means, by virtue of parallelism, that he purified himself by his faults (et
lavi inter innocents manus meas).—The Servant of Jehovah, the Messiah, will
justify many (Isa. liii, 11) which is explained by et iniquitates eorum
ipse portabit. Ecclesiastes (xviii, 22) exhorts the reader not to cease to justify
himself until death. See also Dan. xii, 3. Only an obstinate prejudice can
refuse to see in these examples the meaning of “making just.” We are forced to omit
all the texts which have God for their subject, because our adversaries object
to them. But, when the Almighty enters upon the scene, why could not δικαιουν
from δικαιος mean “to make just,” as λευκουν
from λευκος means “to make white,” or as τυφλουν
from τυφος means “to make blind”? (Ibid., 170 n. 1)
Moreover, it is
evident that the judgment of God is necessarily conformable to truth, and that
no one can be declared just by the infallible Judge if he be not actually so. When
God “justifies the wicked” it must be that he finds him or makes him just, otherwise
we should be brought into the following dilemma: either God declares someone to
be just who is not so, and himself sins against truth, or else the sinner who
is declared just has become so by his own efforts, which is the reverse of Paul’s
doctrine; in any case, to justify the wicked, while leaving him so, is an impossibility
and nonsense. “Paul,” writes Sabatier, “would not have had words severe enough
to brand such a gross misinterpretation of his thought.” Very well; but we are disconcerted
to see the same writer attributing “to the scholasticism of the Middle Ages
this forensic justification, which only makes God’s sentence alike
insufficient and arbitrary,” as if all Catholics, scholastic and others, had
not always rejected this with horror. Luther, who invented it, did not succeed
in persuading Malanchthon, and, in spite of the profession of faith of
Smalkalde, the Lutherans have never been able to come to an understanding on so
fundamental a doctrine. In order to give some support to such strange theories,
they would have to produce a scriptural text, in which the sinner justified by
God is still called a sinner. Such a text does not exist. The faithful are called
“saints” for the one reason that they are Christians and deemed worthy of that
title. In them justice is not simply a fiction; it is as real and as personal
them as the sin which it replaces. It is not either merely the prelude of a new
life, and as it were the negative side of a divine operation, of which
sanctification is the positive complement. IT is the new life itself, and is
indeed the same thing as sanctification. It is sufficient, in order to be convinced
of this, to meditate on these three series of testimonies:
Justification is a “justification
of life” (Rom 5:8)—that is, an act which confers the supernatural life. It
alternates with regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit, which are the
fruit of baptism. (Titus 3:5-7) The Holy Spirit is a “Spirit of life,” (Rom 8:2)
because he brings the life of grace wherever he dwells, and he does dwell in
all the just; or, as St Paul says again: “He liveth because of justification.”
(Rom 8:10)
If we turn to the justification
that comes from faith, the result will be the same; for “the just man liveth by
faith.” (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11) We cannot imagine a just man who does not live by
the life of grace, and consequently we can very well establish a difference in
definition and concept between justification and sanctification, but we cannot
separate them, nor consider as separated these two inseparable things.
The first effect of
baptism is to graft us upon Christ and to make us participate in his life. (Rom
6:3-5) It is impossible that we should die to the old man without beginning to
live to the new. Now this new man is “created according to God in justice and
sanctification.” (Eph 4:24) Justice and sanctify, therefore, are two equivalent
notions; so much so, that St Paul does not fear to reverse the order, and to
say that Christ has become for us “sanctification, justice, and redemption.” (1
Cor 1:30. See Eph 2:9-10) Moreover, reminding the converts of the first moment
of their regeneration, he tells them, without any beating about the bush, as if
he wished to refute in advance the cavillings of the heterodox: “And such some
of you were” (idolaters, adultery, thieves, etc.), “but you are washed, you are
sanctified, you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit
of our God.” The unique moment of baptismal regeneration beings at the same
time purification, sanctification, and justification, and this concluding gift
is mentioned last to show that it is not merely a means of access to and, as it
were, the vestibule of, the other two. (Ibid., 170-72)
1 Cor. vi. 11: καὶ ταῦτά
τινες ἦτε ἀλλ᾽ ἀπελούσασθε, ἀλλ᾽ ἡγιάσθητε, ἀλλ᾽ ἐδικαιώθητε. In regard to this
text, Liddon, with the approval of Sanday (The Epistle to the Romans3,
1898, p. 38) writes that justification and sanctification can be distinguished
by the scholar, as the arterial and the nervous systems are distinguished in
the human body, but that in the living souls these are coincident and
inseparable things. This is not the former orthodox Protestant standpoint. (Ibid.,
171 n. 9)
Forensic Justice
or Real Justice?—But it is one
thing to affirm that the justice of man is a relative concept in the sense
that it implies an essential relation to an external rule, and it is another
thing to claim that it is a purely forensic notion. This thesis,
maintained among others by Cremer, fortified by a great supply of texts and
quotations (Wörterbuch and Die paulin. Rechtfertigungsiehre),
rests only on an ambiguity. Cremer relies upon the fact that the words “just”
and “justice” are very often put into correlation with the words “judge, to
judge” and “judgment”; but it is entirely natural that the ideas of right and
justice frequently call up the ideas of judgment and judge, and this does not
at all prove that the former are forensic—that is to say, exist only
through their relation to the latter. The judge must judge according to the
law, must recognize justice and do justice to the just (Lev. xix, 15, etc.); it
follows that justice exists before the verdict of the judge, and is not
constituted by him. The judge “who justifies the wicked and taketh away the
justice of the just from him” (Is. v. 23) does not alter in the least the intrinsic
nature of the just and unjust; which proves that his self-interested verdict
does not constitute justice, although it takes for granted its existence. Similarly,
God condemns the wicked and justifies the just (I Kings viii, 31), because his
judgment is conformable to truths—another proof that the just are just before
the divine verdict and not by virtue of it, as the wicked are wicked before
their condemnation. (Fernand Prat, The Theology of Saint Paul, 2 vols.
[trans. John L. Stoddard; Westminster, Md.: The Newman Bookshop, 1927], 2:456-47)