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Justified from Eternity

Romans 8:30

Our justification was accomplished by the decree of God the Father in eternity. Yes, in the mind and purpose of God all his elect were justified from eternity. Our justification was actually accomplished by God’s sovereign purpose of grace in eternal predestination before the worlds were made. All God’s elect were redeemed, accepted, justified, blessed, and glorified in and with Christ, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8; 17:8; Ephesians 1:3-7). This is not a matter of speculation or hair-splitting theological precision; but a matter of unmistakable revelation. Read it for yourself in the Book of God (Romans 8:28-32).

Our justification did not commence in time, but in eternity. Paul, speaking of God’s eternal decree of predestination, declares that all of God’s elect were justified in his eternal purpose of grace. As John Gill put it, “God’s will to elect is the election of his people; so also his will to justify them is the justification of them.”

God’s act of justification is an act of his grace and an act of his justice (Romans 3:24). It is God accounting and constituting us righteous, through the righteousness of his Son. From all eternity God has looked upon his Son as our Substitute; and looking upon us in Christ, we are, and always have been, righteous in his sight, “accepted in the Beloved” and saved by “grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”

In the mind and purpose of God, Christ is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; and we were justified in him from everlasting (Revelation 13:8; Isaiah 53). God set up his Son as our Surety, our Substitute, and our Redeemer before the world began; and as such, in his own mind he looked upon Christ as having been slain for us from eternity. Because God our Father looked upon Christ as one already sacrificed for us before the world was, all the blessings of his salvation and grace were given to us in him (Ephesians 1:3-7; 2 Timothy 1:9-10).

Thomas Goodwin rightly asserted, “We may say of all spiritual blessings in Christ what is said of Christ himself, that ‘his goings forth are from everlasting.’ In Christ we are blessed with all spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3). As we are blessed with all others, so with this also, that we were justified then in Christ.”

There are two facts which compel us to look upon justification as an eternal act of God.

1. Had it not been for the fact that God looked upon his elect as being righteous and justified in Christ from eternity, he would have destroyed our race as soon as Adam sinned. God spares the wicked for the sake of the righteous (2 Peter 3:9).

2. The Old Testament saints were justified by Christ, just as we are today. And their justification was just as full, complete, and perfect as ours (Hebrews 9:15, 22; Romans 3:25). They were not justified on credit, but by the blood atonement and propitiatory sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s