I was reading through an old sermon this afternoon and found this quote by Albert Barnes on the doctrine of justification:
"What is justification? It is the declared
purpose of God to regard and treat those sinners who believe in Jesus Christ as
if they had not sinned, on the ground of the merits of the Savior. It is not
mere pardon. Pardon is a free forgiveness of past offenses. It has reference to
those sins as forgiven and blotted out. Justification has respect to the law,
and to God's future dealings with the sinner. It is an act by which God
determines to treat him hereafter as righteous--as if he had not sinned. The
basis for this is the merit of the Lord Jesus Christ, merit that we can plead
as if it were our own. He has taken our place and died in our stead; He has met
the descending stroke of justice, which would have fallen on our own heads if
He had not interposed."
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