Moderners hardly ever interpret their plight with any reference to a personal Creator and Upholder of a moral universe. Man's scapegoat is seldom self. The apostle Paul and Luther, among others, had a keen awareness of a personal God and their accountability to Him. The despairing Augustinian monk Luther discovered a gracious God in the Pauline teaching of justification by faith. When using the term justification, we apply it to sinners.
Justification presupposes criminality, or sin.
There is no need for justification or salvation apart from wrongdoing. Nor can there he any appreciation of a gracious God without awareness of personal wrongdoing and sin. A defective concept of sin inevitably leads to a lack of appreciation of justification and salvation. In order to understand and appreciate justification, or pardon for sin, we must first have a realization of what sin is. It goes back to Eden.