Quiz Key: Justification, Questions 5 and 6
Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 9:15PM This post concludes the answer key to last week’s the quiz on justification. You will find the previous answers here, here and here.
Question 5
5. We are justified when we
- a. believe.
- b. are baptised.
- c. produce a certain level of good works.
- d. a and b.
- e. none of the above.
The correct answer is a. We are justified when we believe. We are justified when we believe.
I’m going to question 71 of the Westminster Larger Catechism as evidence that this is the historic reformed answer to this question. Question 71 says that God requires “nothing of them for their justification but faith.” Since faith is the only thing required of us, we are justified when we first believe.
As scriptural proof, the catechism gives Romans 3:24-25, where we are told that we are justified through the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, which is “received by faith.”
We are not justified when we are baptized, or when we do a certain level of good works.
That we are not justified when we are baptized or when we do good works is the flip side of God requiring nothing of us for justification but faith. Scriptural proof that neither of these things play a role in our justification can be found in Titus 3:5, where Paul says that God saves us “not because of works done by us in righteousness.”
Question 6
6. Which of the statements below describes faith’s role in our justification?
- a. It produces the good works upon we can be justified.
- b. It receives Christ’s full satisfaction of the penalty for sin and perfect fulfillment of God’s precepts.
- c. It is accepted by God as a form of righteousness upon which we can be justified.
- d. a and c.
- e. none of the above.
The correct answer is b. Faith’s role in our justification is that it receives Christ’s full satisfaction of the penalty for sin and perfect fulfillment of God’s precepts.
Faith role in our justification is not that it produces the good works upon which we can be justified.
This does not mean that faith doesn’t produce good works. It simply means that faith produced works are not the grounds upon which we are justified. We can go back to question 70 of the catechism again, which says that justification is “not for any thing wrought in [us], or done by [us].” The basis for our justification, according to the catechism, is not anything done by us, which would include faith produced good works.
For scriptural proof, I think Romans 4:5-6 works:
And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works….
Justification is “to the one who does not work,” and “apart from works.”
Faith’s role in our justification is that it receives Christ’s full satisfaction of the penalty for sin and perfect fulfillment of God’s precepts.
Guess where we’re going for our catechismal proof? Yep, question 70. Justification is grounded in
the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone.
Faith is the instrument that receives the work of Christ, and the work of Christ provides the basis for our justification.
Faith’s role is seen in Romans 3:24-25. We
are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.
In our justification, receive Christ’s redemptive work through faith. Furthermore, the “righteousness from God”, which is “not my own” (which I would interpret to be the imputed righteousness of Christ) “comes through faith in Christ (Philippians 3:9). Putting these two texts together, we see that both the full satisfation and righteousness of Christ are received by faith.
Faith’s role in our justification is not that it is accepted by God as a form of righteousness upon which we can be justified.
This is just another way of saying that our faith is not grounds for our justification. I gave evidence for that in the answer to question 4 under the heading Our faith is not grounds for our justification, so I’ll just point you there.
That’s it. With this, I’ve given all the answers to the quiz, along with the explanations for them. How did you do?
Reader Comments (1)
Four of six correct.