“What is justifying faith? It is the faith that believes what God says in Christ in spite of all I know about myself, my past sins, my present sinfulness, in spite of the fact that I know that I still have an evil nature within me which make me say with Paul, ‘In me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing’. Justifying faith is that which enables a man to believe the Word of God in spite of all that, to believe the Word of God in spite of knowing his own weakness, his own proneness to fall, his own proneness to fail – that is justifying faith…
This is Christian faith. That is justifying faith. It is faith that enables the believer to dare to believe on the bare word of God, that one day he will be ‘faultless & blameless, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing’. Through this faith he can believe ‘that He which hath begun a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ’ [Philippians 1:6], & can stand confidently & defy everybody & everything. Possessing it he no longer fears death & the grave. Indeed, he no longer fears the final judgement because he knows that he has ‘passed from judgement into life’ in Christ Jesus.”
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: An Exposition of Chapters 3.20-4.25 Atonement and Justification
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