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Are we made righteous at justification? Or are we declared righteous?

It may seem like just a small question, but the implications of this question are quite large.
But for those of you who don’t know, let’s define Justification. Justification is a legal term. A catchy way to remember justification is “Just as if you never sinned”. When a person repents and puts his/her trust into Christ, then they are justified, made legally right before God. All the sins they have committed or will commit are wiped clean with Christ’s blood and Christ’s perfect righteousness is imputed (this is an important word as we’ll see later) into them, and not only do they stand before God forgiven, but God sees us (poor wretched undeserving sinners mind you) as righteous! Me, righteous! The thought is mind-blowing. Not only are we forgiven, we are seen as righteous. But only in a legal sense before God. Not in a physical sense. There are two majorly important doctrines when dealing with the past event of salvation. Justification and Regeneration (which is a WONDERFUL book by Charles Lieter as well). Regeneration is where God makes the justified Christian into a new creation. The new birth where we put on the new man and are born again spiritually. A new spirit still in this body of death.

So the question is, at Justification are we declared righteous or made righteous?

I would say we are declared to be righteous and we are made righteous at glorification and are being made righteous now by sanctification. If we were MADE righteous at justification we would never sin again, we would be righteous since we were made righteous. Also, if we were made righteous, there would be no need for glorification (when God makes us perfect) for we would already be perfect. So this made righteousness deal is a little….ridiculous. This idea is more of a Catholic doctrine. Last night while working I was listening to a debate between James White (marvelous teacher) and a Catholic priest (Father Pacaw or something) and this issue came up. Romanists hold that we are infused with Christ’s righteousness, not imputed, and now we are made able to be righteous and in fact have to have good works to be justified. The difference between imputed righteousness and infused righteousness can be explained with this analogy. Let’s say you have to run a 7 mile race. Protestants believe that Christ ran the race and then imputed his accomplishments to you, so it’s seen that you ran the race, when Christ did. Roman Catholics hold the stance that Christ ran the race and then gives you the power to run the race, but you still have to run the race. See the difference? It’s a big one.

It was big enough to start a Reformation over.

A bondslave of Christ Jesus,
Jacob