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4 Justification Today The doctrine of justification is always and everywhere relevant because it speaks of God's judgment on our existence and drives to the direct declaration of that judgment itself. For that reason justification language is dogmatically primary and is the plumb line for the church's proclamation: the article by which the church stands or falls. Its relevance for individual life is that it delivers from the prison all construct for themselves in thefearand denial of death. Its larger relevance for the life of the world derives from the vision it inspires, in contrast to competing visions. It directs our vision beyond absolutism and relativism to the hope that God's will be done "on earth as in heaven." THE QUESTION OF RELEVANCE Is what we have said about justification "relevant" today? Arguments about relevance are somehow always elusive, mostly depressingly dull and finally inconclusive. Probing for the "modern" person, to whom one is supposed to be relevant, has become more and more like shooting at a moving target. As Karl Barth put it, one seems always to be running after the train that has just left. Perhaps part of the problem is that we mistake relevancefortopicality. The topical is peculiar to a particular topos, a restricted time and place, as are styles which come and go, or "topics" of current interest expatiated on in television talk shows. The topical is here today, gone tomorrow. To be relevant , the matter in question must be lifted above the merely topical to the status of that which always and everywhere applies. It is thus redundant to inquire about the relevance of something "today." If it is relevant at all, it is always so. To be precise we should therefore put our question thus: Is justification by faith as we have described it relevant, or was it only of topical interest? Is it always and everywhere applicable, or does it answer only to certain restricted states and needs of the human psyche? More specifically, Does talk of justification carry credence only for those afflicted by a guilty conscience produced by excessive legalism and penitential practice? Does justification 461 1 1 / CHRISTIAN LIFE language depend too much on metaphors drawn from legal and juridical spheres? Arguing for the relevance of justification by faith is perhaps like making an apology for marriage in a brothel. Those who have some inkling of what is involved will not need to be convinced, and those who do not will hardly be convinced by such an exercise. But there is utility in such argument never­ theless, since dogmatics is intended as aid and instruction to teachers and preachers. Thus we can make a beginning by reiterating some of the points made in the note at the end of the first chapter of this locus. Speaking in terms of justification is dogmatically necessary and relevant (always and everywhere), because such speech deals directly with God's judgment on our existence. It deals directly with the concrete structures of law and justice under which we live. It is a mistake to say that such language is restricted to Paul, Augustine, Luther, and a few others who had some problem with "the law." Everywhere in scripture God is the judge, the ultimate judge over human ex­ istence. The "last judgment," the ultimate sentence, is certainly of some relevance. Justification deals directly and conclusively with that judgment. It says what the judgment is: You are justified for Jesus' sake. No doubt there are other metaphors, other pictures and images, for our relationship to God which are important and enlightening and instructive for our communication of the gospel: love, light, truth, meaning, reconcilia­ tion, redemption, and so on. They lack the dogmatic importance accorded to justification language, however, because they tend to remain just metaphors, describing the relationship rather than creating it. "Justification" and related concepts like "imputation," "reckoning," and "forgiveness of sins" maintain their relevance because they point to a quite specific use of language, a use consonant with the eschatological character of the event: doing the deed, delivering the judgment. Justification language, when properly spoken, does not just talk about the relationship to God, it decides the issue. It speaks simply and directly: "I forgive you all your sins forJesus' sake," "I pronounce you just by virtue of Christ's righteousness." It tells us, in effect, why the apology for marriage is not likely to work in the brothel: One cannot merely describe the marriage, one has to give...

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