The Bible is bold and clear when it states, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). If no one is righteous, how can a person become righteous, and therefore, acceptable to God? Justification by faith is the answer! In justification, God declares the one who believes in Jesus to be righteous in His sight. The believing sinner is righteous before God, not because of his own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ which is imputed or credited to him at the time he believes. So, when Christ died for us and rose again, He not only wiped our slate clean of sins, but gave us His righteousness.
Justification by faith did not originate in the New Testament, but people have always been justified by faith, never by works. Paul demonstrates this by citing the fact that Abraham, the spiritual father of us all, was justified by faith! Many of the Jews in the days of Paul thought they could be justified by doing the works of the law (Rom 3;20, 28). It is safe to say that most people in our world today believe they are justified or accepted by God on the basis of their good or religious works. But what Abraham discovered about justification is relevant today – he believed God and was justified! “What does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness’” (Romans 4:3). To show the relevance of this verse from Genesis to our lives, Paul followed up with this, “But the words ‘it was credited to him’ were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord (Romans 4:23-24).