DID JESUS DIE SPIRITUALLY ?
Exposing the JDS Heresy
POINT 4
JUSTIFIED, OR THE JUSTIFIER?
The JDS teachers appeal to I Timothy 3:16 in their search through the Scriptures in an attempt to find a verse here or there which may use some term that seems to lend support to their erroneous doctrine. Since this verse uses the term "was justified" in reference to Jesus (in the English translation), they have jumped to the conclusion that this must mean that Jesus had to be justified or made righteous from sin. This conclusion is, of course, based upon their own Doctrine of the atonement in which their "Jesus" is sent into the Pit having been made "sin" and possessed with an evil, satanic nature. As such he had to be made righteous once more, justified, and born again.
The verse in question reads:
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in [the] Spirit....
Anyone who has studied the Greek language of the New Testament is aware that the term translated as "was justified" in this verse means as the Greek lexicons indicate, "to declare as righteous," or "to show to be righteous." For example, Thayer's Greek Lexicon translates this verse in this sense: Jesus was "evinced to be righteous as to his spiritual nature."
As shown in the preceding discussion, with regard to the doctrine of justification in Scripture, the term dikaiovw (dikaioo) does not mean "to make someone righteous or just," but means "to announce or declare as righteous or just." The Old Testament usage indicates this fact also.
Thus, this verse does not teach that Jesus Christ was made to be righteous (for He never ceased to be righteous), but that He was shown to be righteous; namely, by His holy life and because of His resurrection from the dead.
Because this is the sense of this term, the translators of several of the versions seek to indicate this fact by translating this verse as follows:
was vindicated by the Spirit (The New Testament, Williams. NIV is also same as Williams.)
was declared righteous in spirit (The Emphasized Bible).
was pronounced righteous in spirit (20th Century New Testament).
in the Spirit was attested [as righteous] (New Testament in Modern English)
was proved righteous by the Spirit (New Testament in Modern Speech, Weymouth)
was given God's approval in the spirit (New Testament in Basic English)
was proved spotless and pure in His Spirit (Living Letters: The Paraphrased Epistles, Taylor).
Even without a knowledge of Greek or biblical theology, one would have thought that the JDS ministers would have at least availed themselves of what the translators of some of the versions believed I Timothy 3:16 means. It could have saved them, in this case at least, from such an inexcusable blunder or teaching that the Son of God had to be justified and made righteous, and then appealing to a verse which does not teach it in an attempt to prove it!
Further evidence that this term is used with reference to Jesus Christ in I Timothy 3:16 as meaning "was shown to be righteous in spirit" (the article "the" is not found in the Greek here) is seen from the use of this same term with reference to God the Father in Luke 7:29-30. The account speaks of John the Baptist's message:
And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized of him. But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him.
Here, we are informed that all those who believed the message of repentance which John preached and who were baptized justified God. Clearly, God does not need to be justified in the sense of being made righteous or just. The sense here, just as it is in I Timothy 3:16 with reference to the Son of God, is that God is shown or declared to be righteous (i.e., right) by the people's response to John's message. That is to say, the people who believed and acted on John's message vindicated God, thus witnessing to the fact that He was right in His declaration that they needed to repent.
Additional evidence that I Timothy 3:16 means that Jesus "was shown to be righteous in spirit" (not "was justified in the spirit") is found in the fact that this meaning is supported by New Testament syntax and usage.
It can be noted in the Greek grammars and lexicons that in the absence of the article ("the"), as in the phrase "in spirit" (ejn pneuvmati) in I Timothy 3:16, such a Greek prepositional phrase is stressing the qualitative aspect of the noun ("spirit"). In this instance, it emphasizes the righteous nature or quality of Christ's spirit, precisely the opposite to what the JDS teachers seek to prove from the English translation.
Note: See, for example, Dana & Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, pp. 149-151 (1957); Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon, p. 437 (1965).
THE JDS DOCTRINE PROVIDES NO SCRIPTURAL BASIS FOR JUSTIFICATION
When one asks the JDS fraternity just how God justified Jesus, since He is said to have been made "sin" with mankind's sinfulness, they can give no scriptural basis at all. Without any scriptural support, they state: "Suddenly, God justified Jesus in the Pit, and he was born again."
One is compelled to wonder if the JDS people have ever really studied the Word on the doctrines of the atonement, imputation, and justification, inasmuch as their statements on these subjects are so often totally out of harmony with the Scriptures. There must be a basis for justification of a lost, unregenerate individual. That basis, the Scriptures clearly show in both the Old and New Testaments, is the substitutionary blood atonement of Jesus Christ Himself. The Bible states we are justified by His blood (Romans 5:9; Isaiah 53). For centuries this truth had been emphasized in the Old Testament sacrifices, especially the sin-offering, as the type of Jesus' sacrifice.
Thus, God could not just arbitrarily wave His hand over the JDS "Jesus" in Hell and say: "Be thou cleansed," and, as a consequence, as JDS Doctrine teaches, Jesus was suddenly justified (made righteous), born again, and restored to Sonship with the Father. There is absolutely no scriptural basis for the Jesus-died-spiritually doctrine.
On the contrary, God Himself declares in His Word that: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:20). Again, according to Proverbs 17:15, we are clearly warned: "He that justifieth the wicked...[is an] abomination to the Lord." That is, he that declares the wicked to be righteous would have no basis for this, and such a "whitewashing" of the unrighteous is completely opposed to God's method of dealing with sinners or the unrighteous. Contrary to JDS teaching, God requires a sacrifice for sin as a basis for justifying any lost and unregenerate person. Since the JDS "Jesus" is lost and unregenerate in Hell, where is the basis for his justification? Who provided an atonement or sin-offering for him? An unregenerate, sinful Jesus would need a basis for his justification as much as any other lost individual. JDS Doctrine proves no basis for their statement: "Suddenly, he was justified!"
Thus, the confused, unscriptural nature of the JDS Doctrine is all too evident. Jesus was not "sin," but a holy, righteous sin-offering. He was not justified from sin, but His holy sacrifice was the basis for our justification from sin.