The question is so important that God and Paul devote one entire book of the Bible, Romans, to answering it. That's right ... the one expert on the subject, God Himself, fully and finally stated the answer two thousand years ago. Since Paul was a genius at making himself understood, and since God is the greatest communicator in the universe, all of us should know this answer with greater certainty than we know anything else. Unfortunately, Justification today is anything but clear to most people.
Is Justification instantaneous or progressive? Is it once and for all or might it need to be repeated? Does God justify (declare righteous) godly or ungodly people? If God justifies me, is there anything that I could do to undo my justification? How permanent is justification? What if a justified person sinned ... or even stopped believing? Do small sins leave one's justification intact, but large sins terminate it? Would many sins undo what God has done, but few sins not affect it? These are the questions over which men and movements fight, and yet, they were all answered clearly long ago in Romans, the Handbook of' Salvation.
Paul says that the righteousness (moral rectitude) of God is revealed in the good news of Christ. That God is upright I always knew, or could have known. But that God's infinite rightness is unveiled by His treatment of sinners at Calvary was never made known until God disclosed it to and through Apostle Paul.
IT IS NOT UNTIL WE REACH ROMANS that we learn that GOD JUSTIFIES SINNERS APART FROM ANY QUESTION OF THEIR WORKS! That HE JUSTIFIES THE UNGODLY! That He RETAINS HIS INTEGRITY EVEN WHILE JUSTIFYING THE SINNER WHO ONLY BELIEVES!
Since this Divine revelation of justification by faith ALONE comes to us ONLY from God through Paul, it simply will NOT do to use proof texts from other parts of the Word to answer the great questions that attend the issue of our justification. When men, sometimes even good men, seek to prove that our salvation can be forfeited and is, therefore, no more than probation, by using texts from the Old Testament, the Gospels, or the Jewish Epistles they return us to the confusion that must exist when we are minus the Pauline revelation--the message of Christ risen and glorified. God tells us that His Son "brought life and immortality to light through the (Paul's) gospel."
If two things are unmistakably clear in God's letter to Rome, they are: that I CANNOT STAND before God in my own righteousness, and: That I CANNOT BUT STAND before God in HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS! Precisely here is where so many "drop their watermelon." SALVATION is NOT PROBATION! If I am on probation I am not saved! If I am saved I am not on probation! Christ did not die to be our Probation Officer, but our Savior! HE DIED OUR DEATH! On the cross of a criminal He died the death of a criminal for the criminals--you and me. My death has been died! Your death has been died! All that was wrong with us in the past or that ever could be wrong with us in the present or in the future was addressed perfectly and eternally in the death of the Infinite One Who was there on the cross FOR US! The debt of sin that we could never pay was paid in its entirety by Him Who is infinite in His deity and perfect in His humanity. God can and will ask no more! Nothing less than the death of Christ can save us, and NOTHING MORE IS NEEDED!
Have you ever heard of a fireman, having rescued someone from a burning building, changing his mind because of failures on the part of the one rescued, lifting the person back on his shoulder, climbing back up the ladder and throwing the ingrate back into the flames? No! Nor will God spurn the substitutionary sacrifice of His Son because of your failures or mine! Truly knowing that we are eternally secure does not lead to sinful practices, but to an ever-increasing desire to serve Him Who so generously forgives. *