by Matt Chandler
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.
Galatians 2:15–16

God called us. God came and got you. God found you, rescued you, and wooed you. He drew you to Himself for what purpose? For “those whom he called he also justified” (Rom. 8:30). So what is justification?
We, of all people on earth, should get the idea of justification, because it’s a legal term, and our culture loves legality. For instance, how many CSI TV shows are there these days? Like, twenty-four? How many versions of Law & Order? And that’s just television. We love the law. All you need to do is give us a story about lawyers, prosecution, or good detective work, and we get sucked in; because as a culture, we love the idea of justice. So we should already understand what justification really entails: to be pardoned. Justification is a banging of the gavel of the Sovereign King of Glory that says you’ve been pardoned in full.
And how are we justified? Not by works of the law, but by faith, because the apostle Paul reminded his readers that five hundred years before the Law was given, Abraham was justified by faith. You’re not justified because you cleaned up your act. We’re not people who have pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. Our testimony of salvation is not one of moral improvement.
Paul was so passionate about this that he said the exact same thing in his next sentence: “So we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because”—here it is again, third time—“by works of the law no one will be justified.” He came at this from multiple angles in just two verses (Gal. 2:15–16). You’re not going to be able to be justified by the law, the law will not justify you, and all of us have been justified by faith in Christ.
We’ve got to grasp that because of the life, death, and resurrection of the Son, the royal Judge has pardoned all of our sin—past, present, and future. There’s no mistrial, no double jeopardy. Because of Jesus, you are justified forever.

Thought to Remember for Today

If you don’t get justification, you will always run from God rather than toward Him. You avoid people you’ve sinned against, don’t you? If you’ve sinned against someone or lied to someone, don’t you avoid that person? It’s the same with God. You’re going to run from Him to try to clean yourself up. And we clean ourselves up a lot like my four-year-old cleans up after herself—basically just smearing stuff into the cracks. But you don’t have to do that with God. He justifies sinners.

Fitzpatrick, E. (2016). Grace untamed: a 60-day devotional. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook.