Redemption Accomplished and Applied

“This truth that God justifies need to be underlined. We do not justify ourselves. Justification is not our apology nor is it the effect in us of a process of self-excusation. It is not even our confession nor the good feeling that may be induced in us by confession. Justification is not any religious exercise in which we engage however noble and good that religious exercise may be. If we are to understand and appropriate its grace we must turn our thoughts to the action of God in justifying the ungodly. At no point is the free grace of God more manifest than in his justifying act – “being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24).

John Murray Redemption Accomplished and Applied (pg. 118)