Justified

Theologians get into great disagreement of the words derived from the Greek root “dikio, dikaio”. Sometimes they are translated as righteous, righteousness and other times as justified, justification. This sometimes creates confusion about what the cross has achieved.

Some theologians claim that the blood of Jesus has made us righteous. They say that Jesus righteous has been imputed to us. I believe that is misleading. It is Jesus blood that has been imputed to us. We are guilty not righteous. Jesus blood has paid the penalty that the prosecutor demanded for our guilt.

We do not have a good word for our situation once we have trusted in the cross. “Justified” is a better word than “righteous”, but it is not quite right. We claim that we are justified in doing something, if the result was good. That is not what the cross does.

The blood of Jesus does not make us innocent, because our sin is real, but our guilt no longer counts. It has been fully dealt with and does not count against us. We have a clean slate before the judge. That is what Paul meant when he said we are justified by faith/allegiance to Jesus.