Lately I’ve been hearing preachers declare the good news of justification – a word central to the Christian Gospel. They frequently use the catchy word-play that justified means “just-as-if-I’d never sinned”. It seems like a clever phrase, and something that we as Christians can celebrate. But it’s not really that clever, because justification is so much more than this. The main flaw with this definition is that it’s incomplete. Justification should never be reduced to merely the removal of sin. It’s not a negative – sin being dealt with – it’s a positive: I have moved into a right relationship with God. Let’s explore a legal metaphor first. Recently there has been a court battle going on where a person was accused of a significant…
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