[annalex]

"Justified." Past tense

Funny, not a single one of your quotes is in past tense. In the English grammar, passive voice is formed by a past participle, "justified", and the tense is determined by the auxiliary verb. Past tense would be "have been justified", "had been justified" or "was justified". The Greek is a bit different, but neither of these are in the past tense in the original either:

τουτω πας ο πιστευων δικαιουται (Acts 13:39, this part corresponds to "every one that believeth, is justified")

δικαιουμενοι δωρεαν τη αυτου χαριτι (Rom. 3:24, "Being justified freely by his grace")

εις το ειναι αυτον δικαιον και δικαιουντα τον εκ πιστεως ιησου (Rom. 3:26, "that he himself may be just, and the justifier of him, who is of the faith of Jesus Christ")

[HarleyD]

I would suggest that your tenses are incorrect. However, rather than getting into a discussion over word tense and the subtle shades of meanings, I would simply point out that as Christians our position has changed. Please note the following:

We have gone from being slaves to sin to being slaves to God-Rom 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Sin no longer has dominion over us. We are no longer under the law but under grace. - Rom 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

We are no longer children of the flesh but children of God-Rom 9:8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

We are no longer children of wrath - Eph 2:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

We have been raised with Christ and seated with Him - Eph 2:6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

We are children of the light - 1Th 5:5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

We are called children of God - 1Jn 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

These are but a few of the positional changes we have in Christ and they are very clear. These aren't in the future when we get to heaven. They have occured in the past when we accept Christ.

The question someone should be able to address as a Christian is whether they believe themselves to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness? If one can answer this question truthfully then they'll know their position in Christ. If one cannot answer this question, then they should examine themselves to see if they are in the faith.

If your position has changed, then you can't lose that position.

[Mr Rogers]

What a difference a day makes! 400 posts later...

“Funny, not a single one of your quotes is in past tense.”

If you will tell me what past post you are referring to, I’ll try to respond. I am guessing post 1455, but I don’t know.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

There are hundreds of verses proving men's justification is in the past tense. To deny this is to deny the entire book of Hebrews which says after Christ redeemed His sheep the sacrifice was complete and His sheep were acquitted of their sins. Past tense. .

"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." -- 1 Corinthians 1:18

Paul believed he was saved, having been justified by Christ paying for his sins.

Was Paul wrong?

[Dr. Eckleburg]

"Being justified freely by his grace"

How is that phrase any sort of future tense?

It's not. It describes a condition already accomplished.

Consider the legal phrase -- "I, being of sound mind and body..."

That's not an assurance of some future disposition, but a current, ongoing condition already achieved.