Imagine a courtroom. A trial is almost over, and the defendant is standing, ready to hear his sentence. Now look a little closer and see that you are the defendant and that God is the Judge. This is a divine courtroom, and the charge against you is comprehensive but simple: You have sinned against God in thought, word and deed, by what you have done and by what you have not done. You have not loved God with your whole heart; you have not loved your neighbor as yourself. That’s the charge — and now comes the verdict. God speaks with finality and clarity and says: “Not guilty!”
Not guilty? Are you hearing rightly? Don’t we confess our guilt in words like these every Sunday? And aren’t we telling the truth when we do? Can anyone honestly say that he is not guilty of everything specified in the charge? Nobody can — except one: God. And He says, “Not guilty!”
That is what we mean by “justification.” God declares the sinner — a real, honest-to-goodness sinner — innocent. So what about our sins? They are forgiven — completely. Canceled out. We still have them, but God no longer holds them against us in any way, shape or form. As far as He is concerned, they are gone.
But how can God do this? Or better, why does God do this? He can do anything; that’s for sure. But “anything” does not mean “everything.” He chooses to do some things but not others. So why this? Why does God forgive sins?
It’s not because He is indifferent to sin — a grandfatherly God who indulges His grandchildren and overlooks their peccadilloes. It’s not as if He says, “They can’t help it. They’re just human.” No! God is not like that. He is neither indifferent nor indulgent. Quite the contrary. He is holy, and He demands holiness from us. He not only demands holiness but punishes the unrighteous when obedience is not forthcoming: “[God] will render to each one according to his works. … For those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil” (Rom. 2:6–9).
Over and over again in the Bible, we see God punishing sin. He casts Adam and Eve from the garden and curses them and their progeny. He destroys all people except Noah and his family in a worldwide flood. He sends the children of Israel into a Babylonian captivity. Even Jesus promises a time-ending judgment and a final reckoning when He will pronounce this sentence upon evildoers, “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
That’s what God’s Law says — and does. “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:4). God is not indifferent to sin.
But that brings us right back to the question: How then does God declare anybody innocent when nobody is innocent and all deserve punishment? How can God both remain holy (righteous and fair according to His Law) and forgive sins? How is He just when justifying sinners?
Because of Jesus Christ. This is the heart of Christianity. It is the center of what we preach. Because of Jesus Christ, God forgives. This is indeed a mystery, but it is no longer the “how” that is mysterious but rather the “that” — that God in Christ did this at all. St. Paul expressed it this way: “Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:6–8).
God’s love in Christ for sinners is the foundation upon which our entire faith rests. Such love is incomprehensible, beyond anything we ever experience among men and beyond anything we could ever imagine. But we know it’s real because the eternal Son of God entered our time and space, invading our history (“was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary”). He became a true man and humbled Himself to live among us. Like us, He ate and drank, got tired and slept, suffered and died — “yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).
For in His life and by His death, He also assumed our duties under the Law and fulfilled them perfectly. On the cross, He took our punishment. All the divine wrath and anger directed at sin and sinners was redirected at Him. In this way, Jesus satisfied the justice of God when we could not. He took our place.
That is how the righteous God declares us innocent. Our sins are gone because Jesus took them into Himself. “For our sake [God] made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).
The Bible tells us that He “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25). Jesus paid for our sins through His life, suffering and death; and His resurrection was God’s announcement that His work had worked. All were justified, all sins paid for and forgiven, canceled out and gone forever.
But for whom had our Lord done all this? Some churches want to restrict His work to some sinners only, for example, those whom God has arbitrarily chosen as recipients of His grace. Others restrict His saving work to those who have gotten God’s attention by doing or believing something first, almost as if they deserved to be saved. Neither is correct. All have sinned (Rom. 3:23).
But God loved the world (John 3:16). Jesus died for all (2 Cor. 5:15). The resurrection is God’s message of grace to all (Rom. 4:25).
We do not deserve and we cannot earn our salvation. We can only believe it, that is, accept and trust God’s “not guilty” verdict that we hear in the Gospel. Even then, it is the power of the Holy Spirit in that message that moves us to believe it. We don’t choose God; He chooses us — by the Gospel. And those who do not believe remain condemned in their sins (John 3:18).
Our faith does not add anything to the saving work of Jesus. It can’t. There’s nothing to add. We don’t go to a place of suffering when we die because Jesus didn’t suffer enough. He did. Nor do we add our good works to His as if He didn’t do enough. He did. Faith alone receives everything from Jesus, and we need nothing more than that. Complete forgiveness, eternal life, resurrection and glorified bodies — all are God’s gifts on account of Jesus and are received by faith.
Of course, Christians do good works — but not at all for their justification. We serve God by serving our neighbor because we have been forgiven. Such works are not unimportant. They are a way of showing that we are Christians. We love because He first loved us. But we do not live by good works. We cannot. We’re still sinners. What we live by is God’s final verdict upon us, and that’s “not guilty” — “not guilty” because of Jesus.
This article originally appeared in the October 2026 print edition of The Lutheran Witness.
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