Justification is (among other things) forgiveness of sins. Justification “justifies/frees” us from sin. Are these two equivalent? What would it mean to say that forgiveness is a deliverance?
Forgiveness delivers from future punishment. Forgiveness thus frees from fear of death, which enslaves.
Can we say more?
It seems so. Sin’s power is the power of the past, the power of the haunted conscience, the power of hopeless habit and addition. Freed from that past, we are able to walk in newness of life.
Even in a narrow and traditional sense, justification is still a deliverdict.
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…