Who Needs Justification?
God justifies the wicked. That’s pretty radical. It is more radical than the claim that God heals the morally sick or gives grace to those who are willing to cooperate with it or that he rewards those who try to do their best. We don’t even have to deny justification outright. It’s just irrelevant when we stop asking the most important question. Having trouble with the marriage or kids? Sure. Not living up to our expectations? Doesn’t everybody? Not really getting the most out of life and need some fresh advice? I’m all ears. But we don’t care about being “sinners in the hands of an angry God” if we have never encountered a holy God. And if we do not sense a great need, we do not cry out for a great Savior. While Roman Catholics and Protestants used to debate how those born in original sin are saved by grace, these theological categories themselves are becoming replaced across the Roman Catholic-Protestant and liberal-evangelical divides with therapeutic, pragmatic, and consumerist cat
