Paul's Concept of Justification

The Greek family of words characterizing the doctrine of "e;justification by faith"e; (as it is known in English) is most prominent in the writings of the Apostle Paul. It was this doctrine that lay at the heart of the sixteenth-century Reformation; Martin Luther and his followers considered it to be at the very center of the gospel. Protestants came to understand "e;justification"e; differently from the Catholic Church they had left. Instead of the Catholic "e;realist"e; view, in which God makes a sinner righteous, they came to a "e;forensic"e; understanding, by which God, as judge, declares a sinner righteous. During the nineteenth century a third, "e;relational"e; view began to emerge: it viewed "e;justification"e; as God's gift of a right relationship to a sinner. This monograph examines Paul's concept from three perspectives: the New Testament data; the way the doctrine has developed historically; and how the doctrine has been expressed in English translations of the Scriptures. The author concludes that it is the relational view that most accurately depicts Paul's concept of "e;justification."e;