Justified and Born Again

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. ROMANS 4:5

Two sermons in The Fundamental Doctrines of the Christian Faith belong together. One is on justification by faith, which Torrey called the distinctive doctrine of Protestantism. The other is on the new birth. The first is about what God does for us: He declares us righteous. The second is about what God does in us: He gives us a new nature. Torrey held both with equal firmness and was careful never to confuse them.

What justification is

Torrey began, as always, by defining his terms. There are two different ideas of what it means to justify. One is to make righteous. The other is to reckon, declare or show to be righteous. Everything depends on which is meant, and Torrey argued that Scripture means the second. Justification is God’s verdict, not a process in our character. The ungodly are justified, not the reformed.

And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. ACTS 13:39

How we are justified

Torrey then answered the question how, piece by piece. Not by the works of the law, because no one keeps the law. Freely, by God’s grace, as a gift and not a wage.

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. ROMANS 3:24

On the ground of Christ’s shed blood, which satisfies the justice of God. And on the condition of faith, so that God is at once just and the justifier of the one who believes.

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. ROMANS 3:26

The vilest woman in Chicago

Torrey told a story that he clearly loved, and it appears in both The Fundamental Doctrines and his sermon The Most Important Question. Preaching one Sunday in the Chicago Avenue Church on there is therefore now no condemnation, he said that if the vilest woman in Chicago came into the church that morning and put her trust in Jesus Christ, “every sin she ever committed would be blotted out and her record would be as white in God’s sight as that of the purest woman in the room.”

Unknown to him, a member of his congregation had gone that very morning into one of the lowest houses in the city and begged a woman living there to come and hear him. The woman had refused at first, and then agreed to follow a few steps behind. She slipped into the back row just as he spoke those words. She believed them, and at the end of the service she came to the front in tears to thank him.

Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ROMANS 5:1

Torrey added that justification is more than a clean record. The perfect righteousness of Christ is put to the believer’s account, so that he is as near and dear to God as Christ Himself. Wondrous doctrine, he said. Glorious doctrine. He was right.

Faith that works

Torrey was careful to guard the doctrine from misuse. James says a man is justified by works and not by faith only, and some see a contradiction with Paul. Torrey saw none. Paul, he said, speaks against legalism: we are justified on the single condition of real faith. James speaks against antinomianism: the faith that justifies is real faith, and real faith shows itself in action. He quoted with approval a saying he attributed to someone else — that we are justified by faith without works, but not by a faith that is without works.

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. JAMES 2:17

Born again

The new birth, Torrey said, is the impartation of a new nature — God’s own nature.

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 2 PETER 1:4

We are all born with a corrupted nature, blind to the things of God. In the new birth God does not simply improve that nature. He gives a new one. And Torrey traced the results through Scripture: the body becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit; the law of the Spirit sets the believer free from the law of sin; the mind is renewed; the believer believes that Jesus is the Christ, overcomes the world, does not go on in sin, and loves the brethren.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

The necessity he took straight from the lips of Jesus.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. JOHN 3:3

How it happens

Torrey held together two truths that are often pulled apart. Regeneration is God’s work alone; we are saved by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. But that does not mean we must wait passively for God to act. We are born again by the Word of God, received by faith.

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. 1 PETER 1:23

He summed it up in a picture: “In the New Birth the Word of God is the seed; the human heart is the soil; the preacher of the Word is the sower.” The Spirit opens the heart, the hearer believes, the Spirit quickens the seed, and a new life springs up.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. JOHN 1:12–13

A word of balance

Torrey’s teaching here is sound, and his distinction between justification and regeneration is one many Christians would do well to learn. The only caution concerns his list of the marks of the new birth. Read quickly, it can suggest that a true Christian never struggles, never doubts and never falls. Torrey did not mean that, and elsewhere he said plainly that believers still have the flesh. The marks describe the direction of a life, not a flawless record. A struggling believer should look first to the promise of justification — all that believe are justified from all things — and only then to the evidence of new life, which may be small but is real.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Put in your own words the difference between being justified and being born again.

2. Ask whether you are trusting in any way to your own improvement for acceptance with God. Rest instead on Christ’s blood and righteousness alone.

3. Thank God specifically that as a believer you are justified from all things, including the sin that troubles you most.

4. Look for one practical way this week in which your faith can show itself in works.

5. Pray for someone you think of as beyond reach, remembering the woman who slipped into the back row of the Chicago Avenue Church.

A PRAYER

Father, I come to You as one of the ungodly, with nothing to offer but faith in Your Son. Thank You that You justify the ungodly.

Thank You that every sin I have committed is blotted out, and that the righteousness of Christ is put to my account.

Thank You too for the new birth, by Your Word and Spirit. Let the new life You have given show itself in love, in obedience and in victory over the world.

And give me the joy of sowing Your Word in other hearts, that they too may be born again. Amen.