Definition
Justification is the saving act by which God justifies the sinner — places him in a right relationship with his righteous requirements. The classic Protestant definition is forensic-imputative: God declares the believer righteous on the grounds of the imputed righteousness of Christ, without the person having become righteous himself. In the corpus the positions cover a broad spectrum from this classic forensic model to experiential-pneumatological and universally-objective variants.
Usage in the Corpus
E.W. Bullinger & George Warnock
Both defend a forensic-imputative justification: God declares the believer righteous on the grounds of Christ’s offering; the righteous status is a legal imputation, not a moral transformation. Warnock: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood … that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” [Warnock, The Feast of Tabernacles, Ch. 2]
Watchman Nee & Witness Lee
Nee/Lee read justification through the lens of Rom. 8:10: “the spirit is life because of righteousness.” Justification is not only a forensic declaration but has a pneumatological component: the Spirit raises the human spirit to life because of the righteousness worked by Christ. Sanctification and justification are more closely intertwined in Nee/Lee than in the Reformed tradition. [Nee/Lee, The Economy of God]
Stephen Jones
Jones defends a universally-objective justification based on the Adam-Christ parallel (Rom. 5:18): just as Adam’s sin led to condemnation of all people, so Christ’s righteousness leads to justification of all people. Justification is objectively completed in Christ for all humanity; subjective appropriation follows in the tagma phasing. [Jones, Creation’s Jubilee, Ch. 5]
Cees Noordzij
Noordzij mentions justification in the ordo salutis chain (Rom. 8:30) but develops it as a forensic concept less extensively than the Reformed tradition. His emphasis is on the processual movement toward glorification.