Owen on the etymology of ‘Justification’

Lane Keister has been looking at Leithart’s etymological study on the word ‘justify’ (among other things).  Here I offer some thoughts from John Owen.

Owen was aware that the Latin word for justification, justificatio, denotes an internal change, from inherent unrighteousness to inherent righteousness.  However, he argues that “Justificatio” and “justifico” do not belong to the Latin tongue, “nor can any good author be produced who ever used them, for the making of him inherently righteous …” (5:124).  So, he says, “Heron, in the whole Roman school, justification is taken for justifaction, or the making of a man to be inherently righteous …” (5:124).  Because of this, some of the “ancients”, as Owen put it, confused justification with sanctification (Ibid).  The Reformation “cry” of ad fontes, borrowed from the Renaissance, which would become a hallmark of Protestant exegesis, meant for Owen that the meaning of the word justification must be determined by scriptural use (Ibid).

Owen argues, “All Protestants … affirm that the use and signification of these words is forensic” because in the Hebrew justification comes from qdæx; (tsadaq).   
 

And the sense may be taken from any one of them, as Job xiii.18, fp;v]mi yTiK]ræ[; an;AhNehi qD;x]a, ynia}AyKi yTi[]dæy; — “Behold, now I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.” The ordering of his cause (his judgment), his cause to be judged on, is his preparation for a sentence, either of absolution or condemnation: and hereon his confidence was, that he should be justified; that is, absolved, acquitted, pronounced righteous. And the sense is no less pregnant in the other places.

 

Furthermore, all of these verses use the term qdæx; in the hiphil and are translated by dikaiou,n in the Septuagint (LXX).  In defending the forensic sense of the term and, therefore, imputation, Owen argues that qdæx is not used on any occasion but to “absolve, acquit, esteem, declare, pronounce righteous, or to impute righteousness; which is the forensic sense of the word we plead for … so vain is the pretence of some, that justification consists only in the pardon of sin, which is not signified by the word in any one place of Scripture (5:125-6).  Owen does note, “Wherefore, although qdæx; in Kal signifies ‘justum esse’, and sometimes ‘juste agere,’ which may relate unto inherent righteousness, yet where any action towards another is denoted, this word signifies nothing but to esteem, declare, pronounce, and adjudge any one absolved, acquitted, cleared, justified: there is, therefore, no other kind of justification once mentioned in the Old Testament” (5:128).
 

The New Testament use of the word justification bears similar results for Owen where the word, and that alone, Dikaio>w, is used.  Owen writes (5:128), “Neither is this word used in any good author whatever to signify the making of a man righteous by any applications to produce internal righteousness in him; but either to absolve and acquit, to judge, esteem, and pronounce righteous; or, on the contrary, to condemn.” 

 
Owen’s primary goal is to establish the forensic sense of the term because of the obvious implications this has for the doctrine of justification.  If it can be established that the term is primarily – perhaps only? – used in a forensic sense, to declare righteous, and thus carries a more significant connotation than mere forgiveness, then the Reformed doctrine of justification will be maintained.