The Fundamental Nature of Justification

[Justification's] importance lies particularly in its accentuation of the objectivity of the good news of salvation, its givenness, before any consideration of the subjective aspect. People . . . are justified because God justifies. . . . To speak of justification is to speak of the ground of salvation extra nos, in a salvific event that expresses the righteousness of God - especially the 'right-setting' act of God in Jesus Christ - without regard to any claim of our own, not even our faith. Justification is fundamentally about how God deals with humans and the broken, sinful world in which they live. It is above all about grace.

--Christiaan Mostert, "Justification and Eschatology," in What Is Justification About? (Eerdmans 2009), 185-86; emphasis original

There never was, and there never can be, any true Christian church without the doctrine of justification.

--Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei (Cambridge U. Press, 1986), 1