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sinner’s just amenability to punishment, but not the inherent guiltiness of whatever sins he may
continue to perform. The latter remains and therefore always produces in believers a feeling of
guilt, of separation from God, of sorrow, of repentance, and so on. Hence they feel the need of
confessing their sins, even the sins of their youth, Ps. 25:7: 51:5-9. The believer who is really
conscious of his sin feels within him an urge to confess it and to seek the comforting assurance
of forgiveness. Moreover, such confession and prayer is not only a subjectively felt need, but
also an objective necessity. Justification is essentially an objective declaration respecting the
sinner in the tribunal of God, but it is not merely that; it is also an actus transiens, passing into
the consciousness of the believer. The divine sentence of acquittal is brought home to the
sinner and awakens the joyous consciousness of the forgiveness of sins and of favor with God.
Now this consciousness of pardon and of a renewed filial relationship is often disturbed and
obscured by sin, and is again quickened and strengthened by confession and prayer, and by a
renewed exercise of faith.
2. THE POSITIVE ELEMENT.
There is also a positive element in justification which is based more
particularly on the active obedience of Christ. Naturally they who, like Piscator and the
Arminians, deny the imputation of the active obedience of Christ to the sinner, thereby also
deny the positive element in justification. According to them justification leaves man without
any claim on life eternal, simply places him in the position of Adam before the fall, though
according to the Arminians under a different law, the law of evangelical obedience, and leaves
it to man to merit acceptance with God and eternal life by faith and obedience. But it is quite
evident from Scripture that justification is more than mere pardon. Unto Joshua, the high
priest, who stood, as the representative of Israel, with filthy garments before the Lord, Jehovah
said: “Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee (negative element), and I will
clothe thee with rich apparel” (positive element), Zech. 3:4. According to Acts 26:18 we obtain
by faith “remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified.” Romans 5:1,2
teaches us that justification by faith brings not only peace with God, but also access to God and
joy in the hope of glory. And according to Gal. 4:5 Christ was born under the law also “that we
might receive the adoption of sons.” In this positive element two parts may be distinguished:
a. The adoption of children.
Believers are first of all children of God by adoption. This implies,
of course, that they are not children of God by nature, as modern liberals would have us
believe, for one cannot well adopt his own children. This adoption is a legal act, whereby God
places the sinner in the status of a child, but does not change him inwardly any more than
parents by the mere act of adoption change the inner life of an adopted child. The change that
is effected concerns the relation in which man stands to God. By virtue of their adoption
believers are as it were initiated into the very family of God, come under the law of filial
obedience, and at the same time become entitled to all the privileges of sonship. The sonship