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

Here Paul describes a result of faith as being justified. Justification is a complicated issue because it requires a deeper understanding of the just character of God. God’s dealing with the unjust in the Old Testament economy is frightful. We should not take the issue lightly and examine the method by which God the Father justifies us by faith.

While researching justification I discovered in the Easton Bible Dictionary a new term which I had not come across before. It begins like this; “a forensic term, opposed to condemnation” EBD. I thought carefully about this forensic term before deciding to draw any conclusions. The science of forensics is discovering truth in a matter. The comment “opposed to condemnation” would imply that the cause of death, or why the body was put to death is not the reason for the examination.

Philippians 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

Christ is not dead, so the forensic examination is not for cause of death, which we know is sin, but to discover who is in Christ. Interestingly there is this one point in which the faith of Christ is responsible for our righteousness. The reason it is interesting is because one of the definitions of righteousness is a right standing before God.

This takes the definition of justification from the forensic to the judicial. In the courts of heaven the only legal recourse we have is Christ’s faithfulness. We are guilty of all the sins we have committed and nothing we can say or do will justify our actions. We are guilty. If we are found forensically to be in Christ then we were crucified with Christ. All this occurs as a result of faith.