The Meaning of Justification

‘Justification is used in Scripture to mean the acceptance of God by anyone as righteous. Justification means that God treats a person who is guilty of sin as not guilty; God declares that that person is to be viewed as legally righteous. (It does not mean that the person is actually made righteous, any more than ‘to glorify God’ can mean actually to make God glorious. The meaning is simply to declare that God is glorious).’ (James Buchanan, Not Guilty – an abridged version of his book Justification, published in 1867)