J.I. Packer offers a summery of the Reformers' teaching on Justification. He "boils down" his summary into seven points (cited from A Quest for Godliness, pp 152):
- Every man faces the judgement [sic] seat of God, and must answer to God for himself. The church cannot shield him from this.
- Every man is a sinner by nature and practice, a nonconformist so far as God's law is concerned, and therefore can only expect God's wrath and rejection.
- Justification is God's judicial act of pardoning the guilty sinner, accepting him as righteous, and receiving him as a son.
- The source of justification is grace, not human effort or initiative.
- The ground of justification is Christ's vicarious righteousness and blood-shedding, not our own merit.
- The means of justification, here and now, is faith in Jesus Christ.
- The fruit of faith, the evidence of its reality, is a manifested repentance and a life of good works.
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