Justified

Justification is more than forgiveness.

Before that first disobedience by Adam and Eve, they enjoyed perfect loyalty to an infinitely pure and holy Creator. They were pure and holy, never having the slightest taint of sin and rebellion. Self was never a consideration for them. Self-preservation, self-protection, self-justification, self-esteem, self image, self-reliance, self service, self-interest, self-sufficiency, self-confidence, and a host of other self-related aspects of sin, had never dawned on their minds.

Now, depending on self, they cut themselves off of their Creator. Why should they need Him for anything if they weren’t going to depend on Him for everything? This was God’s way of thinking. They would be His completely, or not at all. If they chose Satan as their support and his form of government as theirs, they could not own the minutest part of the Divine government.

They were outcasts from their first family because they chose to be adopted by a “better” family, one that had promised to give them more than God had. So, the perfect home and even life itself, which they had been so generously given, could no longer be theirs. It was only fair.

They could never, ever stand before God again in perfect trust. Never, ever. How could they? What was done was done. The past couldn’t be changed. There is no undoing something that has occurred. It’s simply impossible. They had insulted the infinite God. They had offended the angelic hosts. They had joined with the terrorists and committed high treason to a government that could never suffer one offense. It had been built on complete and utter self-forgetfulness as the only sure promise of enduring forever. Any one disobedience endangered the whole structure of the universe. Every law would be loosed of its eternal purpose if one law could be relaxed. The moral law especially would be under attack.

How could one little failure cause the whole universe to collapse? God knows and sees the end from the beginning. It would all eventually unravel. Satan would eventually destroy it all and then destroy himself.

But what about Adam and Eve? They were the apple of God’s eye. Earth was a precious creation to Him. The newly created pair was an amazing object lesson for all of heaven to learn from about the mystery of God and His character. Could anything be done for them? Yes, God had already known about such a contingency. He already had a plan laid out and discussed with His Son that They would use this emergency to its best potential and reveal God’s character anyway, despite the gross presence of sin and selfishness in the realm.

Through the revelation of divine pain and agony throughout all time, divine love would be demonstrated in a new way than had ever before this been realized. Grace would come to light, an aspect of God’s character that had ever been exercised toward His growing and developing heavenly hosts and unfallen worlds, but had never been explicitly defined as it would be now that a rebellion was in effect. The wonderful new discovery by the perfect and holy hosts of heaven and loyal worlds was that they needed the infinite Creator’s grace too, and had been receiving it since their creation. Earth and the great controversy became a subject the angels intensely desired to look into. 1 Pet. 1:12.

“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor?
Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” (Rom 11:33-36).

Through His grace, even man could be reinstated into the family of heaven. By faith in the Son of God, through sorrow for self-exaltation and renunciation of sin, every one of Adam’s children could be restored. Unreserved forgiveness would be granted, full and complete reconciliation with God’s great heart of love. Total renewing and rebuilding of the first trust would begin. Damage was done; scars would persist, not only with God, but with all of heaven; but God would open the once closed door and invite the repentant and humbled human race home again.

Justification is the Biblical term used to describe this gracious provision by the Divinity. To be justified is more than forgiveness. It means to be looked upon and treated as if the rebel had never, ever rebelled; the child had never, ever turned on the Father and left. By looking on the agony of the precious Son of God, our pride could be broken, our hearts won again to self-sacrificing love, fully adopted back into the Divine family, and reinstated as free-born citizens into the government of heaven, which administers and enforces the Law of God.

Justified—Just as if I’d never, ever, ever, ever sinned.


The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell;It goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell;The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win;His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.

When years of time shall pass away, and earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,When men, who here refuse to pray, on rocks and hills and mountains call,God’s love so sure, shall still endure, all measureless and strong;Redeeming grace to Adam’s race--the saints’ and angels’ song.

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made,Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,To write the love of God above, would drain the ocean dry.Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.


O love of God, how rich and pure!How measureless and strong!It shall forevermore endureThe saints’ and angels’ song.