How Can You Be Justified with God?

How Can You Be Justified with God?

There is a question that rises above every other question you will ever ask in this brief and fragile life, a question that stands like a mountain above the plains of human curiosity, refusing to be ignored or postponed, because it reaches beyond the boundaries of time and presses into eternity itself. That question is simply this: How can you be justified with God? You may spend your days wondering where you came from, what your purpose is, how the universe works, or what lies beyond the veil of death, but all these inquiries, however noble or fascinating, eventually bend toward this one unavoidable point. If you cannot stand righteous before a holy God, then every other discovery, achievement, or insight becomes nothing more than a temporary distraction from an eternal problem. Job asked it plainly: “How should man be just with God?” (Job 9:2). Bildad echoed it: “How then can man be justified with God?” (Job 25:4). And whether you realize it or not, your own soul whispers the same question in the quiet hours when the noise of life fades and the weight of eternity presses in.

Yet the tragedy—and the irony—is that although this question is the greatest question ever placed before the human heart, you are utterly incapable of answering it by your own intellect, your own religion, or your own tradition. You may pride yourself on your intelligence, your education, your ability to reason and analyze and debate, but the moment you attempt to climb the heights of God’s righteousness with the ladder of your own understanding, you discover that your ladder is far too short, your footing far too weak, and your vision far too dim. God confronted Job with this reality when He asked, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38:4), reminding him—and reminding you—that the human mind, however brilliant, cannot reach into the counsels of God or grasp the depths of His righteousness. You may understand the mechanics of the world around you, but you cannot, by intellect alone, understand the holiness of the God who made it.

And if intellect fails, religion fares no better. Humanity has spent thousands of years constructing systems of worship, rituals, sacraments, ceremonies, and traditions, each one claiming to offer a pathway to God, yet none of them capable of removing a single stain of guilt from the human soul. Religion can stir your emotions, shape your habits, and give you a sense of belonging, but it cannot justify you before a God whose eyes are too pure to behold iniquity. You may be baptized, confirmed, catechized, or consecrated; you may kneel, confess, tithe, or partake; you may follow the traditions of your parents, your culture, or your denomination; but none of these things can make you righteous. Paul warned Israel of this very danger when he said they had “a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2). Zeal without truth is a torch without fire, bright in appearance but powerless to give light.

And if intellect and religion fail, tradition and personal opinion collapse even faster. Many people answer this question by looking inward, trusting their feelings, their moral instincts, or their personal sense of goodness. They say, “I think I’m a good person,” or “I believe God understands my situation,” or “I feel like everything will work out in the end.” But Scripture cuts through these illusions with surgical precision: “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2). Your opinions cannot justify you. Your feelings cannot cleanse you. Your traditions cannot save you. When you rely on your own thoughts, you are doing exactly what Job’s friends did—speaking “words without knowledge” (Job 38:2), asking the right question but seeking the answer in the wrong place.

And so you find yourself in a wilderness, a vast and barren landscape where every human attempt to answer the greatest question collapses under its own weight. Your intellect cannot reach high enough. Your religion cannot dig deep enough. Your traditions cannot stretch far enough. You stand before a God whose righteousness is infinitely higher than your best efforts, and you realize that you cannot justify yourself. You cannot erase your guilt. You cannot bridge the gap between your sin and His holiness. If the answer depended on you, you would be lost forever.

But here, in this wilderness of human insufficiency, where every path you have tried has led only to dead ends, a new path appears—not one built by human hands, but one revealed by God Himself. For the answer to the greatest question ever asked does not rise from the earth; it descends from heaven. It does not come from the mind of man; it comes from the mouth of God. It does not rest on your works, your worthiness, or your wisdom; it rests entirely on the finished work of Jesus Christ. Paul declares it with clarity that cuts through centuries of confusion: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5). Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness—not because his faith was strong, but because the One he believed was faithful.

Thus, the answer to the greatest question is not found in what you do for God, but in what God has done for you. You are justified with God by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, who bore your sin, satisfied God’s righteousness, died your death, and rose again for your justification. When you believe the gospel—when you rest your trust in what God has said about His Son—God imputes righteousness to you freely, fully, and forever. This is not a righteousness you earn, achieve, or maintain; it is a righteousness God gives to those who believe, a righteousness rooted not in your performance but in Christ’s perfection.

And so you arrive at the end of the journey, not at a cliff of despair but at a doorway of hope. For the God who demands righteousness has also provided it. The God who judges sin has also borne it. The God who requires justification has also accomplished it. And the God who could have left you wandering in the wilderness has instead opened a way into His presence for all who will believe.

God has made a way. And that way is Jesus Christ.