Follow Jesus Christ

What did Jesus teach: forgiveness or justification? “Justification” in a court of law is the official declaration that someone is not guilty — because of lack of evidence, absence of the elements of a crime, or by amnesty. “Forgiveness,” as a voluntary reconciliation between parties, can mitigate or even cancel a punishment, but it does not erase the fact that the offense took place. After forgiveness the wrongdoing takes on a kind of “imaginary unit”: it is both gone and yet present somewhere far away, in a parallel reality. Acquittal in court is a one‑off action: once the ruling is made it is definitive; the decision of a supreme court, and a fortiori of a Divine Court, is not subject to appeal. The apostle Paul taught justification in that legal sense, while Jesus taught wholehearted forgiveness.

An example of forgiveness: when parents forgive a child’s prank that broke an expensive vase. Forgiveness is not a cancellation of reality — it does not say that nothing happened, that the pain was imagined, or that the harm doesn’t matter. Forgiveness begins with an honest acknowledgment: harm was done. It was real. Forgiveness sometimes does not mean reconciliation (in especially severe cases); it does not mean the erasure of boundaries or an automatic restoration of trust. In human relationships forgiveness is a refusal to live by revenge and bitterness. In a modern sense forgiveness is the moment someone says, “I will not let this evil rule my life anymore.” It is a refusal of constant internal judgment, a rejection of self‑destructive anger, a stepping out of the role of perpetual victim. Not always done for the offender’s sake, but rather for one’s own freedom. Contemporary psychology insists that forgiveness is a process, not a single act of will. Trauma does not disappear on command; body and psyche follow their own logic. Therefore forgiveness is not instantaneous, not linear, and does not necessarily come with “warm feelings.” Forgiveness is the restoration of wholeness. It is the moment when the past no longer defines the present, when the pain ceases to be the center and the person belongs to themself again. From this perspective forgiveness is closer to healing than to a legal act. That is what Jesus was trying to teach.

The parable of the prodigal son is a direct anti‑legal parable. Legal logic would say the younger son violated the law, squandered the patrimony, and should be restored to rights only through punishment. What does the father — who has been waiting a long time for his son’s return — do? He does not interrogate, deliberate, or lay down conditions. He runs to meet him, restores his status, and celebrates. Where does the legal model break down and the truth of natural human forgiveness assert itself? The son is reinstated without a trial, restored without any compensation; his status is returned to its original level. The elder son speaks with the voice of the law and demands a hearing. The father answers with the logic of life and the decision of his heart, without legal proceedings.

Legal justification is a concept from juridical logic, not from psychological or existential experience. It is important to understand it as a cognitive model because that model was later carried over into theology. Legal justification is the official recognition that a person is not guilty or not subject to punishment on the basis of law, procedure (for example penalty, sacrifice, or court decision), or judicial determination. The key point is that this concerns a person’s status before the law, not their inner condition. The law is concerned with whether a violation occurred, whether guilt is proven, whether punishment is applicable. The law is largely indifferent to motive, inner state, repentance, trauma, or healing. Legal conclusions are binary: guilty or not guilty. A person can be justified on formal grounds — for lack of evidence or by amnesty — even if they do not repent, do not change, or repeat the same offense. The law can free one from sentence, but it does not restore trust, heal relationships, or repair the person.

Why does the apostle Paul so often invoke the idea of legal justification in his letters? It has to do with the consciousness of human society, which for many centuries developed the notions of a just court. When the legal model was transferred into religion, the logic emerged: God is Judge, man is the accused, sin is a crime, and salvation is an acquittal. In that model status is everything. Forgiveness is understood as the cancellation of punishment, while inner transformation becomes secondary. The ancient person lived in a world of external law rather than inner reflection. The Greco‑Roman person had little developed psychology and rarely thought in terms of trauma, identity, or an inner “self.” He understood himself through kin, status, law, external approval or condemnation. Legal justification was for the ancients an understandable, necessary, and the only way to restore order. Theology always reflects people’s level of self‑understanding. Aware of this pattern, Paul sometimes explained forgiveness in a language comprehensible to the citizens of the Roman Empire. Even today the salvation of the soul is often understood through the prism of legal justification. Yet Jesus’ teaching stood — and still stands — on a higher rung.

Jesus appeared at a threshold between eras. He came into an ancient world of law, sacrifice, courts, purity and impurity. But Jesus scarcely spoke the language of the court: he did not pronounce sentences, did not demand sacrifices, and did not formalize justification juridically. Jesus healed, restored dignity, removed shame, and spoke about the heart, about sight, about life. In other words, he moved consciousness beyond what it was ready for at the time. Jesus taught about forgiveness not as a legal act, not as justification, but as a way to stop allowing the past to govern life and identity. He pointed to God as Father rather than Judge. The Heavenly Father forgives without any courts; he possesses infinite love and an unlimited capacity to forgive wherever possible. A person may receive the Father’s forgiveness freely, and then evil ceases to be the center of the inner life, making it possible to grow and become better. So if Jesus brought a non‑legal logic, why did the church paradoxically return to religious jurisprudence? Because after Jesus’ death the church confronted empire, laws, courts, and institutions. To survive and be understood, the faith once again translated his experience into legal language. That simplified and systematized theology, but it also impoverished the original logic and simplified Jesus’ authentic teaching.

Today the legal model is losing its effectiveness. Modern people have progressed: they live less by external belonging to groups and more by their inner psychological processes. They experience inner trauma, know shame and self‑destruction, and seek healing, not verdicts. Legal justification as our ancestors understood it no longer heals, does not restore wholeness, and does not remove the inner tribunal. People no longer hear it. Today people fear not hell but meaninglessness. The modern person will not accept a justification that humiliates their dignity, turns them into a perpetual debtor, or terrifies them. Yet at any time people understand Jesus’ language: the language of love and forgiveness. Today Jesus would say what he said in his earthly life. He would not say, “You are justified by divine judgment through grace,” but rather, “You are not lost; you are not reducible to your mistakes; you can ask for and receive the Heavenly Father’s forgiveness at any moment, and I am always here to help you become better.”