To make matters worse, Protestantism's reaction against legalism has made the church very suspicious of law. In a recent article, Professor Gordon H. Clark shows that even the word legalism has evolved a new meaning. Amorphous love replaces definite commands. This enables the liberals to transfer the odium of legalism in its historic sense to the evangelical view that is not subject to such a criticism. The church today is not too concerned with the great Reformation article of justification largely because the law has fallen into disuse.
Justification is a legal word, a law term.
Dr. Strong defines it as being set right before the law. But this is a very permissive age. God is too often viewed as an easy-going Benevolence who forgives sins quite apart from upholding the integrity of His law. Thus modern Protestantism really denies the validity of all the forensic terms in which the Bible explains to us our relationship with God. The modern Protestant, therefore, is willing to see man as a wandering child, a lost prodigal needing to find a way home to his heavenly Father, but, generally speaking, he is not willing to see him as a guilty criminal arraigned before the Judge of all the earth.