Justification is “The divine act of pronouncing sinners righteous” (Jost) or as a kind of joke, being justified is just-as-if-i’d never sinned.  It is important because “We are sinful and unable to follow God’s law and God requires his people to be righteous.” (Jost).  What justification entails is “The remission of sins and Christ’s righteousness imputed to us.” (Jost).
	This is shown in Romans 4 where Paul is talking about Abraham and David being justified “But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” (Rom 4:5).  Many people try to say that to be justified you also need to do works or that believe means do works, but as that verse says “worketh not, but believeth” so you can believe and not do works.
	The most commonly taken out of context scripture people use to try to prove you need to do works in order to be saved are “…though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?” (Jam 2:14).  The reason why this is not teaching that is one, don’t base doctrine off of questions, even Mormons have a verse on getting baptized for dead people “…baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?” (1 Cor 15:29).  Two, it’s not talking about salvation, it’s talking about saving someone from dying, the next few verses talk about not giving people food.  Not every time the Bible uses the word “save” is about salvation, such as when Peter said “Lord, save me.” (Mat 14:30) when he was drowning, he was asking Jesus to save him from drowning, not save him from his sins.
	Related to that is people also use “Was not Abraham our father justified by works… by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” (Jam 2:21/24), and say that how it says that we are justified by works and not faith only.  But, like before, just as “saved” isn’t always about salvation, neither is the word “justified”.  It says Abraham was justified by works, but he was justified to man, not God.  As Romans 4:2 says “For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”, so he was justified in the eyes of men by his works, but not to God, because only God can see your faith, man can only hear your words and see your works, they can’t see your heart as God does.  So, Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son proved to men that he truly believed in God.
	Related to justification is the doctrine of eternal security or once saved, always saved.  It teaches that when a believer trust in Christ, and Christ alone, for their salvation then they are eternally secure and nothing they can do can send them to hell.
	You can find this in scripture when it says that we have eternal life “that when they believe, they are given God’s own eternal life.  A life that is eternal by definition cannot come to an end.” (Boyd Eddy 187).  In John 5:24 where Jesus says “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” He says we hath everlasting life, NOT “will get” But “has”, also again he says it is everlasting. He also says “shall not come into condemnation” so if you ever do come into condemnation (being cast into hell) then Jesus would have lied since he said “shall not” not “might not”. And finally, he says “but is passed from death unto life”, he says “is passed” not “will be passed”, so we already have been given everlasting life, it’s not something we get when we physically die, but something you get the second you believe on Christ.
	In Ephesians 1 it says “in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, (13-14)” it says that we are sealed with the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption(the rapture), so if you were able to lose having the Holy Ghost before the rapture then the verse would be a lie.
	Also, in Romans 4:8 it says “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”, “will not” is future tense.  How would God impute sin on you if he promised that he will not do that?
	When we become born again, we then become a son of God (John 1:12), and the apostle Paul in Hebrews 12:6-8 says how we are the sons of God, and compares it to our earthly fathers in the next verse.  A loving father will chastise/spank you when you do wrong, not throw you into the furnace of fire.  A thing people bring up is that if eternal security is true then “they can live however they please without fear of eternal consequences.” (Boyd Eddy 194), which is technically true, but just because you can live in sin after you get saved doesn’t mean that is an okay thing to do.  If you love Jesus then you should keep his commandments (John 14:15), if you decide to break the commandments then God will make your earthly life miserable but he will never send you to hell.
	If you believe that salvation is a process then you can’t ever know that you are saved, which contradicts 1 John 5:13 “that ye may know that ye have eternal life,” where John clearly says you can know that you are saved.
	A popular verse people will bring up to show you can lose your salvation is Philippians 2:12 “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”, and say that if you have to work out your salvation then it is a process.  But they are interpreting it wrong, it says “work out” not “work for”, he is telling people that are already saved to do works, to tell unsaved people to work out their salvation makes zero sense.  An analogy would be if you tell someone to work out their legs with squats and calf raises, but they have no legs, that makes no sense.
	People also use Hebrews 10:26 to try to prove you can lose your salvation, but it is completely taken out of context.  Hebrews Chapter 10 is specifically about the animal sacrifices that the people in the OT would do, “But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.   For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. (10:3-4)”, also how Jesus is now our sacrifice for sin, “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (10:12)”.  Verse 26 “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,” is saying that if you sin knowing that what you are doing is sinful, then there is no sacrifice that you can do, such as slaying an animal on the altar.  People in the OT used to do animal sacrifices after they would sin to try to have the Lord not be as angry with them, Paul is saying that now we do not do that, so if you sin then there is no animal you can slay to please the Lord.  It also then means that God expects more out of us now than he did with the people in the OT, and will punish us more when we do sin.
	I always have identified as being Christian but never really went to church, but did read the Bible sometimes, and was wondering whether or not I was good enough or “checked all the boxes” on getting to heaven.  I didn’t even know there was much of a debate over how to be saved, I always thought and heard that you have to believe, be baptized, take communion, do good works etc. until a few years ago, early 2017, I found this video on YouTube by pastor Steven Anderson called “The Bible Way to Heaven” where he clearly presents what the gospel is and how to be saved, grace through faith alone and not works, I then trusted Jesus alone as my savior instead of thinking I needed to work my way to Heaven.
	These two doctrines, justification and eternal security are very closely related because you can’t have one without the other.  You can’t be justified if you aren’t trusting in Jesus alone as you savior and think you need to do works.  You also can’t believe eternal security if you believe you need works for salvation because you can’t ever then know if you have worked hard enough.  When I explain the gospel to someone 90% of the time, I get them to believe we are saved by faith alone and not works, then ask them if they can lose their salvation and they say you still have to work or you lose your salvation, which then it’s not by faith alone.  So, I believe it’s important to explain to someone the eternal security of the believer otherwise they often are wrong on justification.