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Justification and Atonement
The word justification in the Bible comes from the Greek word dikaiosis, which denotes the act of pronouncing righteous, or acquittal. The definition of acquittal is: a setting free from the charge of an offense by verdict, sentence, or other legal process. We were all guilty of sin before we gave our lives to Jesus. Turning our lives over to Him could not change the fact that we were guilty: if only the guilt is taken away, and not the sin. And a criminal that is found guilty is never released to go free or do whatever he pleases. When found guilty there is always a penalty. But Christ took away the sin, not just the guilt of sin. We could not be found guilty because we were made righteous through the blood of Jesus, having all sin washed away. Acquittal was only possible because of the fact that sin was removed. We could not be acquitted while being found guilty. And being free from guilt alone does not make a person holy. If only the guilt of sin was washed away or covered, but not the sin itself, then we are still in sin, but just not “found” guilty. This is not possible! In order to be acceptable to God we must be holy, not merely appear holy. Nor can we claim Christ’s holiness upon us without becoming holy ourselves through the affect of His holiness upon us. To Calvinists, such as mentioned by Stanley, a Christian is declared “not guilty”, in which nothing can change. They emphasize on the idea that a person is “declared” not guilty, rather than “made” not guilty through the removal of sin. To the Calvinist a person may still be in their sin and not guilty at the same time. This is a distorted definition of the word justification! The way many define justification is “just as if it never happened”. This is correct; since sins are taken away we have a clean slate. It is just as if our sin never happened, because we are completely washed clean, our sins are cast away and remembered no more, and we are completely free from sin. The Calvinist view of justification is that we may still have sin in our lives, but we are declared “not guilty” anyway; having Christ’s righteousness imparted to us. This is not justice, and it is not what scripture teaches at all! When we gave our lives to Christ we were pronounced righteousness, as all sin is washed away. According to Calvinists we are simply “pronounced” righteous only, even though we still live in sin. According to Dr. Tony Evans, Christians are made holy by Christ, even though they may be sinning; because of God’s divine nature that is upon us. But divine nature is evident though our lives with a testimony to others of how God can change a life. Otherwise old things do not really pass away and all things do not truly become new. But the new life in Christ, the “born again” experience will always be evident in our lives for all to see. This is the work of His divine nature within us that has brought salvation to us. Sin is the very thing that separates the new nature in Christ from the old nature in sin. If sin would try to resurface in our lives after we have been saved, then we must deal with it in a righteous way. The blood of Christ does not only make us appear holy, but it actually makes us holy as we act against it. But it is never automatic! A person who really gets saved will want to purify their whole heart and life. The spirit of God within them will challenge them to be holy, and purify their lives. So by the Spirit of God they are “made holy”: but not without their choice to “be holy”. It is the Calvinists teaching that all Christians are justified, “rendered just”, through Christ, but that we cannot ever be without sin. We only appear right before God, as our unrighteousness is covered by the righteousness of God. So according to Calvinists we are still in our sins. If a criminal is acquitted of his crime, but has not changed at all, he may be free from the charges against him, but yet he himself may be no different then he was before. Being acquitted is saying he is “rendered as just”. But if he is a criminal and does not change his ways, he will eventually do the crime again, will get caught and have to again pay for his crime. An acquitted criminal is still a criminal, unless he changes his ways. Any person who will turn their life over to Christ cannot be only “rendered as just” but they must “be” just! The Greek word here does not mean that we appear as righteous, but we are “made righteous”. And if this is true, then there is no justification for the sinning Christian, for they are not truly justified. To be “made righteous” is not something that is done against the will of man. If a man comes to Christ in true repentance, because of his heart of true repentance God will give him what he asked for; forgiveness of sins and ability to live holy before Him. Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit he is then “made righteous” or “justified”. Through God’s presence in his life he will no longer desire sin, the old ways, and all that dishonors God. As a man continues in Christ he will continue to grow and overcome, being “made righteous”. Simply defined by the Calvinists, justification means, “forgiven”. But not only is this not the actual definition of the word justification, Jesus did not merely forgive our sins; He removed them. John 1:29 “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Forgiveness was made possible through the removal of our sins. Jesus certainly did die for our sins and was the sacrifice for our sins, but forgiveness of sins without the removal of sins is no more possible than the healing of cancer without the removal of the cancer. Once the cancer is gone we are then healed, and once the sin is gone we are then forgiven. We are forgiven of our sins only because our sins have first been removed, by receiving Him as Lord and through repentance. Through accepting Christ as savior a person will be washed in the blood of Christ, and thus forgiven for their sins. Sacrifice always had to be made before sin could be forgiven. Since the one-time sacrifice has already been received in Christ, all we need is repentance, in which we are then washed clean. The sacrifice is made active for us through repentance, and forgiveness is then received. When asked what they must do to be saved in Acts 2, Peter answered, “repent, and be baptized, every one of you…” Through the sermon that Peter had just preached, the people knew that they had to accept Jesus as the Christ. So in instructing them on how to receive forgiveness of their sins, Peter told them they must repent. Even though they were guilty of crucifying Jesus, God would save them if they would simply receive Him and repent of their sins. He made a way that the guilty could have another chance to change their nature and to be free from sin, no longer being guilty sinners, but now redeemed righteous saints. Not only appearing as righteous, just as we would not only appear healed, but as true Christians having overcome the world, because Jesus has overcome the world. His Spirit dwells within us, making us “more than Conquerors”.
Romans 8:37 “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” John 16:33 “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
Every Christian will have hardships during their life. But hardships, trials, or tribulation are no excuse for sin. Hard times can no more separate us from Christ than the devil himself can. But it is when we listen to the devils lies or respond by sinning that we are in danger of being cut off. We all will have times when we are not as spiritually zealous, because of situations beyond our control. According to the scriptures, Christians have conquered sin, and have overcome the world. Not in a spiritual sense as Calvinists assume, but in real life. How can we say that we have overcome because He has overcome when we are bound in sin? He has given us the ability to be overcomers through His victory over sin; but we must choose to walk in that victory through faith. The biggest battle a Christian should have in life is not against sinful lifestyles, but against fear, discouragement, and weariness in well doing. (Galatians 6:9) None of these are sins unto death, but are part of our fighting the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12). We have been “pronounced righteous” by Christ, through faith in His victory over sin. But this does not happen without any willingness to change and to forsake sin. If what Calvinists teach is true, then as long as we accept Jesus as Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, then we are saved, even if we continue in sin; and salvation cannot be lost. Many Calvinists may claim that if they do not leave sin behind then they didn’t really get saved. But there is still the person who does change, and then weeks, months, or even years later returns to sin. Although salvation is not possible without the working of Christ in us, it also is not possible without our receiving it. And just as Christ died for our sins so that we may be forgiven, forgiveness is not possible without repentance. As mentioned several times already, I will continue to mention the fallacy of the payment theory and the punishment theory. If my son was arrested for a crime of some sort and I was to go to the court and ask that I pay the price for him, taking his place, the judge would not even consider it as a possibility. An innocent person would never be allowed to take the place of a guilty person. If by chance the judge would allow such a thing, my taking his place could never make my son righteous. Even if I paid the price for him he would still be a criminal and a sinner. In the case of sin the penalty is death. We could not die for our own sins, but yet there had to be a sacrifice. So Jesus became the sin offering in behalf of the sins of all mankind. In order for His death and resurrection to be effective for us, we must receive Him as our Lord and savior, repent of our sins, overcome sin by His blood and through His Spirit, and be clothed in His righteousness. Although the Calvinist teaching is that Jesus was punished for our sins, we should know by now that He did not receive punishment for our sins, even though we know that He did shed His blood for our sins. His suffering was because of the sinful acts of men, which He willingly endured so that He could go to the cross and become the “Lamb of God”, the sacrifice for our sins. He suffered because of our sins, and died for our sins. Suffering does not pay for sins, but it surely does show His deep love for mankind. Nowhere in Biblical terminology do we see the implication of payment of punishment. Justification in no way implies such! The Calvinists explain Atonement as penal satisfaction; which means that Christ suffered for our sins through “punishment” by God. But this is false teaching and a misunderstanding of Atonement. The Atonement of Christ is properly understood as a priestly sacrifice, where Christ was both the “offerer” and the “offering”. He was the High Priest who offered the sacrifice to God, which was Himself. He was the offering as He gave Himself to die and shed His blood for mankind. Titus 2:14 “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”
1 John 2:2 “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
In this scripture Calvinists try to say that according to this word “propitiation”, it means that Jesus was the “appeasement” for our sins. Because Jesus died for us, He has appeased God’s anger, in order to keep Him from judging us. This is used as a support for their punishment theory. So God the Father is a big angry mean God, and Jesus cooled off His anger by dying on the cross. This of course is also false teaching. This scripture, when using the word “propitiation”, should have said “atonement” or “sin offering”. The Greek word for this English word “propitiation” is hilasmos (hil-as-mos'): atonement. The word propitiation was placed here changing the meaning of the scripture. It should say “And He is the sin offering for our sins”. Atonement means, “sin offering”, while propitiation means “appeasement”. Pagans would offer sacrifices to their false gods, even their own children, so that they could appease their god. Certainly our God and our Lord Jesus would not require the same kind of appeasement. Our God wants the offering of a pure heart, given willingly out of a heart of love for Him. The Bible says that, “God is Love”. It also says that He never changes. So God has always been “love”, even before Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Christ’s love for us can be no different than the Fathers love, since they are “one”. But yet so many people want to make the Father an angry God whose hot anger was cooled off by the death of Christ. Christ Jesus was the sin offering for our sins, out of a pure love for the souls of mankind, not an appeasement for Gods anger. God sent the Son because He loved the world so much! (John 3:16) Think about it: If Gods anger needed appeased in order to forgive us of our sins, then how was it appeased in order to be willing to offer His Son for our sins to begin with. If He was that angry then He would not have made a way for man to be saved, but would rather have just destroyed man. But God’s love for mankind is evident throughout scripture, both before and after the death and resurrection of Christ. Christ’s death was the act of His love for man by making a way for forgiveness of sins, and making a way that we could fellowship with Him; the Godhead, not just Jesus. This fellowship is only possible through the overcoming of sin: through the blood of God’s sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ. Although we have used the term that Christ “paid for” our sins on the cross, it should be clear that this really is an incorrect statement. There are no statements in the Scripture that say explicitly that through the death of Jesus that our sins were "paid for". The atonement is a "provision" which makes the Gospel the good news, truly good news for all. A provision is not a payment and thereby is not for a limited few, but is for the whole world. As a provision, it can and does demand conditions in order to receive its benefits. A provision is conditional, while a payment is not. A provision is made for whosoever is in need to come freely, and a payment is made for a particular number or particular people. If we admit that some will not be saved, and we believe that Jesus died for every man and the whole world, we should be able to see that it must be a provisional atonement and not a payment. Because of the fact that some are lost shows that payment has not yet been made, because they do not yet belong to Christ. If sin was paid for on the cross for the sins of all mankind, then all men would be considered saved automatically through Christ’s death and resurrection. But a provision demands us to repent and believe the gospel as a condition of receiving the forgiveness of sins, as He has provided the way of salvation. Jesus is God, and as God He is immutable. He cannot change; neither can He separate Himself from the Godhead to the degree that this theory calls for. He is God, was God, and always will be God. However, he is also human. If God the Father were to "turn His back" on God the Son then we would have a tension in the Divine Nature, and this cannot be. Both payment and punishment are impossibilities as Calvinists have taught them. To sum all this up in a paragraph: if we understand that Jesus was an offering for our sins, a provision that requires a response from men, but that He did not simply pay for all sin through penal satisfaction, then we will also understand that if we sin we must also repent in order to continue in Christ and in salvation. Because we do not “appear” as righteous without “living” a righteous life, and we are not justified sinners; but we are “made holy” as He directs our paths into righteousness. The Calvinists will use this theology of justification to teach that all sins are forgiven; past, present and future, regardless of whether or not we walk in repentance and live a holy life. But it is evident throughout scripture that God has given every Christian the responsibility to live righteously, to be separate from sin, and to continually turn to Jesus for forgiveness and cleansing of our hearts. Calvinist doctrine teaches that the blood of Jesus covers our sins and that the guilt is taken away. But if they live according to this belief and remain in sin, then they cannot be saved. For the Bible clearly declares that our sins are taken away, and they are not just covered. All sin, and not just the guilt of sin! So many Calvinist’s are still in their sins, because they openly admit that their sins have not been removed. Therefore, the salvation of many proclaiming Christians must be questioned. If they are still in their sins, they are no different than any other sinner in the world who is without Christ. 
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Calvinism