Institutes 3.11.4 — OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. BOTH THE NAME AND THE REALITY DEFINED.

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**OF JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. BOTH THE NAME AND THE REALITY DEFINED.**

Without saying more about the term, we shall have no doubt as to the thing meant if we attend to the description which is given of it. For Paul certainly designates justification by the term acceptance , when he says to the Ephesians, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved,” ( Eph. 1:5, 6 ). His meaning is the very same as where he elsewhere says, “being justified freely by his grace,” ( Rom. 3:24 ). In the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, he first terms it the imputation of righteousness, and hesitates not to place it in forgiveness of sins: “Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven,” &c. ( Rom. 4:6-8 ). There, indeed, he is not speaking of a part of justification, but of the whole. He declares, moreover, that a definition of it was given by David, when he pronounced him blessed who has obtained the free pardon of his sins. Whence it appears that this righteousness of which he speaks is simply opposed to judicial guilt. French, “Dont il appert qu’il note ces deux choses comme opposites, Estre justifies et Estre tenu coulpable; à ce que le proces soit fait à l’homme qui aura failli;”—whence it appears that he sets down as oppopsites the two things, To be justified, and To be held guilty, in that the process is brought against man who has failed.

Source

• source-manifest/institutes — Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Beveridge 1845 (PD)
• evidence_grade: D_doctrinal_textbook