The exculpation of guilt or the demonstration of the correctness of an act or statement. OT uses reflect the human desire to justify oneself (Job 32:2; Job 33:32; Isa 43:9) or show one is “in the right.” There is also concern for justifying the ways of God to human beings (Job 32:2; Ps 51:4). Early Jewish Christians confessed that Jesus was raised “for our justification” (Rom 4:25) and that we are “justified . . . in Christ Jesus . . . by his blood” (Rom 3:24-25). They further confessed that when Christ “was made to be sin” (perhaps a “sin offering,” 2Cor 5:21), it demonstrated God’s righteousness while at the same time showing that sinners are justified by faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26). Paul deepened this idea of justification through faith “apart from works prescribed by the law” (Rom 3:28) and applied it to non-Jews (Gal 3:8) as well as Jews (Rom 3:30) on the basis of Abraham’s experience (Rom 4).
