Secondly, Justification is not only before faith, but it is from eternity, being an immanent act in the divine mind, and so an internal and eternal one; as may be concluded,
- From eternal election: the objects of justification are God’s elect; “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? it is God that justifies”; that is, the elect. Now if God’s elect, as such, can have nothing laid to their charge; but are by God acquitted, discharged, and justified; and if they bore this character of elect from eternity, or were chosen in Christ before the world began; then they must be acquitted, discharged and justified so early, so as nothing could be laid to their charge: besides, by electing grace men were put into Christ, and were considered as in him before the foundation of the world; and if they were considered as in him, they must be considered as righteous or unrighteous; not surely as unrighteous, unjustified, and in a state of condemnation; for “there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ”, #Ro 8:1 and therefore must be considered as righteous, and so justified: “Justified then we were, says Dr. Thomas Goodwin {13 — Vol. 9 works} when first elected, though not in our own persons, yet in our Head, as he had our persons then given him, and we came to have a being and an interest in him.”
Dr. John Gill
18th Century Baptist MinisterContinuing this line of reasoning and expanding upon it;Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Here St. Paul clearly writes that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. This is the same “before the foundation of the world” that St. John speaks of Christ wherein having been slain (Rev. 13:8). It was before the foundation of the world that the elect were chosen to be holy and without blame before in love. It is not possible to be holy and without blame before God apart from Justification. Therefore we can only conclude that Justification is from eternity.
1PE 1:2 Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied…. 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
You see this eternal aspect here don’t you? St. Peter in vs. 2 is connecting the election of the saints to the blood/work of Jesus Christ. Then the elect are picked up in vs. 19 where Peter speaks of the blood/work of Christ as being foreordained before the foundation of the world, and then connects that foreordained work of Christ with its manifestation in these last times. These last times that Peter speaks of occurred in the 1st century with Christ’s crucifixion. There is a clear connection made by Peter between being elect according to the foreknowledge of God (from all eternity), the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus (which justifies), and the foreordination of all this before the foundation of the world.As the elect were in Christ from the foundation of the world they were in Christ as righteous in the mind of God. The elect were from the foundation of the world justified in the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Further, were God in time to change His disposition upon the elect from wrath to love there would be mutability in God and the attribute of immutability would be lost. God would be seen to be as in process instead of being the eternal I am.
