Justifying Reformed Theology by Torah
Abstract:
This article was edited at the end of 2024 to reflect my changed views on PSA. There is always a danger of a discontinuity of thought in "correcting" an old article. I apologize in advance for that.
The Greek verb translated in the sense “justify” (δικαιόω) does not mean “justify” (the usual English sense) in most of Paul’s usages. In first century Greek it meant “to do justice” or “to administer justice” in any possbile sense. So long as the outcome was just or righteous, all outcomes could be referrerd to by the verb, including clemency or forgiveness. The term does not mean “to declare righteous,” “to acquit”, “make righteous” or “to prove right” in such cases (as claimed by most Christians) when the party making a defense is not actually in the right. When Paul says “we account a man to be administered justice apart from...works” (Rom. 3:28), he means that Messiah is giving a pardon or forgiveness. A judge who administers forgiveness or pardon at the outcome of a trial because of circumstances such as the sincere repentance of the defendant is said to be administering justice to the person. When Paul says "without works" he is not referring to the sincere repentance, but to such works as might be regarded by the defendant to be merits to offset his demerits. These are works that might be offered to compensate the judge for the demerits in hopes of getting an acquittal. This kind of works defense is called propitiation or appeasement. Even substitute works are not allowed to "pay for" forgiveness, much less an acquittal. Forgiveness is truly without such works. When Paul says we are administered justice without works, he also means the purging or cleansing operation of the Spirit through the blood of Messiah. It is God's justice to both forgive and to cleanse, neither which are earned by works so as to compensate God, but both are granted upon repentance seeking for an unearned pardon. That is, a pardon or forgiveness that involves nothing paid to God that might offset the sin to induce him to give it. Only his own justice or mercy causes him to give it. Nothing is paid to God. Rather it is God paying the cost in suffering to draw us to him so we may be forgiven.
The Protestant doctrine that the cross results in a declaration of righteousness, without being found righteous, is fundamentally based on a principle of lawlessness, since it justifies the guilty. It is also based on the implicit notion that God can be compensated for sin by legalistic restitution. The declaration of righteousness, said to be based on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer, is thought to compensate God for all of his losses, and to repair, and reverse, all wrongs done to him. Not even the righteousness of God can undo all the negative effects of sin. Therefore, the cross is about the unjust impact of our sin on the Most High, who became man in Messiah Yeshua, and who as God suffered the impact of our sins, and whose blood purges us from our sins. Becuase the life is in the blood, the divine life of Messiah purges us from sin, even until now. He did this to show that he suffers too, and that he desires to impart his divine life to us, even through his blood. There is no operation of penalty paying to the Father here. The cost is suffered by the Most High. No cost is paid to him. He offered his own Son. It was his loss to watch him suffer from the injustices done to his Son. This was done to draw all men to come, so that they could come be be purged from sin by the life in his blood. As it is written, he shall sprinkle many nations. The cross does not justify any sinner in the modern sense of this word. Rather it is divine justice for the sinner, consisting of one part forgiveness, and one part purging from sin. The Most High allowed Satan to directly do him injustice as his vehicle or means of delivering to us the ultimate purging of our sins. At the same time he highlights the wickedness of our evil against the only kindred Son of God, and that he endures it to purge all who may confess their sin, get his forgiveness, and then be purged from it by the life he lost. The sinner is not delcared righteous in his sin through this administration of justice. So the outcome is not an acquittal, which is a finding that the sinner did not sin. But the sinner is pardoned and cleansed from sin when he repents from his sin. The doctrine of justification, as they call it, or declaring the sinner in the right, by means of substitution, is no more than using the deeds of righteousness to offset the deeds of wickedness. This kind of doctrine is appeasement of the authority, by trying to give the judge something of value through which the judge declares the debt paid. This kind of justice is not allowed. But the judges shall find the wicked guilty, and the righteous innocent. And a wicked person shall not be declared right or justified by the judge. The whole Western Christian paradigm of Penal Substitution is based on a lawless interpretation of Torah and Messiah's death, as well as a corrupt reading of Isaiah 53.
citation from article: torahtimes.org/commentary/rom_3_28.html
To justify something may mean to correct or straighten it out, or it may mean to acquit or prove it right. Here I intend to do justice to the Reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone through grace alone using the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. In this article, I am going to concentrate on the meaning of the word translated justify. First let us compare translations:
For we are accounting a man to be
I should explain this right away, before listing the other versions: the main sense is that justice is administered by Messiah’s faithfulness. This is not our faithfulness. It is His faithfulness to obey the Father’s commandment to submit to suffering from our sins in the flesh, that he already suffered from in Spirit, so that he may draw we who are in the flesh to him, to purge our sins. His faithfulness to administer justice is without our works, which cannot compensate him. I already proved that Paul is speaking of Messiah’s faithfulness in this other article. Since it is through his faithfulness that he administers justice, such is without our works. Trying to satisfy punitive justice by good works is really a tradition. It was never prescribed by Torah, therefore it is best taken as traditional works, or legal works to satisfy divine justice against sin or to avoid the penalty. It should be understood that traditional works include any tradition, whether a legitimate law or an invented tradition, by which one seeks to satisfy punitive justice. I am not therefore particularly making a difference between works of law here and works of custom. The key to knowing whether one is obeying to satisfy punitive justice by his own works is simply if he thinks God needs some sort of human payment to cancel out the penalty. God does not need to be paid to forgive. The one who truly repents realizes that he does God a wrong through sin that cannot be recovered by any payment. Appeasement by works also includes philosophic or theological means, like the Church's doctrine of "imputed righteousness," penalty satisfaction by substitution, or repair of damaged honor through punishment.
Now I will list some other translations:
1. “For we reckon that a man is declared right by belief without works of Torah” [ISR, Institute for Scripture Research, 1998]
2. “For we consider that a person is declared righteous by faith apart from the works of the law [NET (New English Translation) Bible]
3. “Therefore, we hold the view that a person comes to be considered righteous by God on the ground of trusting, which has nothing to do with legalistic observance of Torah commands.” [The Complete Jewish Bible, David Stern].
4. “Therefore do we reckon a man to be declared righteous by faith, apart from works of law.” [Young’s Literal Translation]
5. “So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.” [New Living Translation]
6. “We determine therefore that by faith a man is made righteous and not by the works of The Written Law.” [Aramaic Bible in Plain English].
7. “We conclude that a person has God's approval by faith, not by his own efforts.” [God’s Word Translation]
8. “For we maintain that it is as the result of faith that a man is held to be righteous, apart from actions done in obedience to Law.” [Weymouth New Testament]
Finally here, I repeat the Good News of Messiah translation:
For we are accounting a man to be
Firstly, it is plainly obvious that the concept of being declared righteous or made righteous without obeying the Law is a contradiction of the Law. So either Paul has been mistranslated, or Paul cannot be a true teacher. Those are the only two choices here. The Torah says, “From a false matter you shall keep far and clear, and the righteous you shall not slay, because
The Scripture also says, “And
Since our fidelity must be tested, it is abundantly clear that the Most High is not causing us to be faithful. He is expecting us to be faithful in response to His faithfulness, and such faithfulness as we have is righteousness, and counted as righteousness. Is it then necessary to condemn Paul as a false teacher? Or is he just mistranslated and misunderstood? The latter answer is correct. In the Greek language, the primary sense of the verb δικαιόω was not declare righteous or justify. The English word justify in respect to persons almost always means to acquit or to prove to be in the right. To be justified without works in English means to be acquitted without actually being right. It is a contradition of the very terms used. The Almighty said he will not do that. So we must discover the primary meaning of the Greek word Paul used. The first meaning of δικαιόω is “to do justice” “to administrate justice”. I have provided this archive of documentation to prove the matter. I suggest that all doubters look over all the examples and the photos I have provided from the Greek dictionaries.
I translate the word as to administer justice. This means that such justice as God requires in the case of the sinner is administered to him. It does not mean that the sinners case ends with an acquittal. If an unrepentant sinner is tried, then an assigned punitive justice is satisfied with the eternal death of the sinner. If a repentant sinner is tried, and pleads guilty, then Messiah administers benevolent justice, forgiveness of sins, and cleansing from sin. If the sinner accepts it, then Messiah forgives and cleanses on behalf of the sinner. This is the justice administered for the repentant sinner. The Father has determined to accept Messiah’s suffering and temporary death as cancelling out any requirement for punitive justice against the repentant person. The divine divorce decree due to our sin is taken to the grave by Messiah, and left there. The sinner is justiced or administered justice by way of mercy and cleansing.
Probably the most literal way to understand the original language is by turning the noun justice into a verb, to justice. The sinner is justiced by Messiah. The English word justify has been used euphemistically for the condmening of criminals, but such usage is archaic and is no longer any modern sense. I would like now to show why the Scripture cannot mean declared righteous in any sense, even if someone admits that the doers of the law are righteous. To do this I will have to explain the various forms of justice along with the Reformed theory of justification.
The Reformed theory of justification proposes that the righteous perfection of Messiah, who never sinned, is legally transferred to the account of the sinner. God then views the account having only righteousness in it, and as a judge dismisses the case with an acquittal. The sinner is declared not guilty. In the Reformed theory, the death of Christ effects the transferrence of his righteousness to the account of the believer. This is a just as if I had never sinned theory. Reformers are often quick to deny that it is just as if I had never sinned, but that is exactly what it is. For they claim that all justice is perfectly satisfied. In that claim lies the real problem.
The claim implicit in substitutionary righteousness to satisfy justice depends on the philosophy that substitutionary righteousness compensates God for sin. And if any substitutionary righteousness can compensate God for sin, then perfect substitutionary righteousness may compensate God for all sin. This is the real philosophy behind the Reformed teaching of imputed righteousness, whether they will admit to it or not. It is a logical necessity. If Reformed theologians deny that substitutionary righteousness compensates God for sin, then there is no point in the idea in the first place. Substitutionary righteousness in reformed theology is not an actual imputation of righteousness to sanctify us (which really has a legitimate purpose). Rather they regard it as forensic righteousness which is legally accounted. This has no purpose except to get the judge to declare the sinner innocent. It is a legal fraud, a shell game.
Substitutionary righteousness raises the question of whether God can be justly compensated for all sin. So we have to make a distinction between compensatory justice and punitive justice. Compensatory justice repairs all the damages due to sin. Perfect compensatory justice requires the undoing of all the suffering and death caused by sin. One can see therefore that perfect compensatory justice is impossible. The fact of suffering caused by sin cannot be erased. The only pefect compensation is if the suffering was never caused to happen in the first place. Punitive justice, on the other hand, is an expression of anger, wrath, and disgust against sin. Punitive justice takes an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb, and life for life. Punitive justice does not restore the victim of a murderer to life again. Punative justice does not bring back the eye maliciously put out by the sinner. Punitive justice serves no social purpose or deterrance, or disapproval, unless it is executed on the sinner himself.
The Scripture, therefore, establishes a standard of punative justice for sin. Yet, it also allows for God to forgive the repenant person, so that he does not die, because he has repented (cf. Ezekiel 18). It does not establish a standard of perfect compensatory justice for the forgiveness of sins. Perfect justice requires both punative justice and compensatory justice to be satisfied, but since full compensation for sin is impossible, the scripture does not seek perfectly equitable justice. God in his mercy cannot both at the same time undo all the causes of sin and satisfy perfect and equitable compensatory justice. Therefore, the demand for perfect compensation is dropped from his forgiveness. A punative justice only is sought after, and this in His mercy is paid by Messiah.
Messiah paid our penalty. The penalty was the punative justice that the Father determined was necessary. Punative justice is based on an equitable principle, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb, life for life. A sinner can compensate a victim only in certain cases, such as property loss, or doctoring expenses. Even though the principle of punative justice is based on equity, it does not repair the damages. That is why it is punative justice. The damage of sin to the forgiven sinner is repaired by the resurrection life of Messiah, but the damage to any other unsaved party is not repaired, and the damage to God caused by the loss of the unsaved is not repaired. Even punishment of the wicked in the fire of Hell does not compensate God for the loss of the sinner. Even the eternal conscious torment that some advocate cannot compensate God. It cannot compensate God because it does not bring those killed by sin back to life.
Substitutionary righteousness falsely teaches that the Most High can be compensated. The Almighty desires us to become righteous, and to make us righteous, but this in no way compensates him for his loss. If we think we lost something due to the sin of others, rest assured that Yahweh has lost more. His only recourse is to demand a punative penalty to express his wrath against sin, and then to make a way that the penalty can be paid by a willing substitute (himself) so that he can forgive sin. Forgiveness is a remission of further punishement. Forgiveness is a forgoing of further demands for compensation, or a droping of such demands where impossible.
Substitutionary righteousness makes the sinner feel as if the cross has paid the Most High off completely and utterly for the consequences of sin. Therefore, the sinner returns to his sin thinking that they can return to the priest and obtain absolution after their penance. Trusting in substitutionary righteousness is no contrition for sin at all. It is a substitute for repentance, and a misunderstanding of forgiveness. Since Paul dealt so clearly with the notion that our good works pay off sin, the philosophers in the Church kept the principle and implied that Messiah's righteousness compensates sin, so as to avoid saying that the sinners good works do that. The sinner who feels 100% righteous in God's sight has faith in a illusion of righteousness. And having faith in an illusion of righteousness is a stumbling block to the seeking of real genuine righteousness that flows from the faithfulness of Messiah.
Is it any different that the Church of Rome teaches infused righteousness, in which the believer is said to actually be righteous in an inward mystical sense? There are also some who claim to be perfect, and that they are cleansed from all sin, and not just being cleansed from sin, or cleansed from condemnation. But these are also illusions of righteousness, based on unbiblical philosophies. God does not give a darn about substitutionary righteousness of any form, which is an illusion to make the unsaved feel like they are saved. If they really understood how much the Most High was forgiving, they would not presume on it by inventing these other theories.
There is a theory that is very common, that Messiah dying for the sins of the world means that the sins of the whole world are forgiven. What is missing is obvious: the sinner needs to repent accept Messiah and become faithful. What died for the sins of the world means is that he gave them a means of being saved (such was the extent of his love for the world), not that he unilaterally forgave all sin. Yet that is how this theory goes. It is almost universalism. But it is not always because those who hold this theory often say that if a person does not believe all sin is forgiven in Christ, then his penalty will be reinstated. But wait! Sinners generally do not believe that in the first place, so now we will say their sins are reinstated. There is no logic here. The theory is based on the philosoophy that compensation for all sin is possible except in the case where someone refuses the compensation.
The doctrine of the Reformation essentially trades the concept of punitive justice taught in scripture against sin, and substitutes a principle of compensatory justice. This changes the view of God from a God who is just, and who demands justice tempered with mercy, to a God who demands full compensatory justice, and gets compensatory justice, and if God ever forgives, it is never without some compensation or punishment in the balances. At the same time reformed theologians continue to talk in terms of forgiveness and mercy. God does not like this mixture of a philosophy of compensation with his forgiveness. It is a stumbling block to sinners who think they are just in God's eyes, and who think everything they do is paid for. The false doctrine mixed with some truth is a false compromise with the ungodly.
How did the mixture of truth (justice balanced with mercy) and error (the idea of compensation for God) get mixed together? The error was introduced by sinners who did not want to repent of their mortal sins. A mortal sin is a sin so serious that one cannot commit it and at the same time claim to be saved. A mortal sin must be repented. But many did not want to repent of their mortal sins. They still wanted to have a free conscience; they wanted to be condemnation free in their mortal sin. So they came up with a philosophy of salvation whereby God would be compensated for their mortal sin, and would not see their mortal sin. The mortal sin is the sin unto death that John speaks about. A mortal sin is not a sin of ignorance or circumstance. Paul lists such sins in Gal. 5 and says that those doing them will not inherit the kingdom of God. Unto the doctrine of substitutionary righteousness they also added once saved always saved so that salvation was not conditioned upon their repenting from mortal sins. They wanted it guaranteed apart from any subsequent sin on their part.
Now we do believe and teach the real imputation of righteousness through repentance and the instruction of the Spirit of Messiah. And for the full and complete imputation which comes from the faithfulness of Messiah, we do wait. For Messiah's faithfulness to die is for the purging and cleansing of our sin. And Messiah's faithfulness due to his divine life is what sanctifies us. He is restoring us until the last day, in which we are perfected. This righteousness is not offered to us as compensation for sin to satisfy punitive justice. It is offered as a free gift. It is real actual righteousness which is being infused into our hearts. It is not that we have caught up with perfection, but leaving what lies behind we pursue it. For we wait for the righteousness that comes by His faithfulness, and do pursue it by enduring in faithfulness to him.