Final Justification According To Works? (Part II)

A short while back, Andrew posted a great excerpt from C. Venema on final judgment (here).

Turretin sounds similar:

Although our justification will be fully declared on the last day (our good works also being brought forward as the sign and proof of its truth, Mt. 25.34-40), still falsely would anyone maintain from this a twofold gospel justification – one from faith in this life (which is the first); and the other (and second) from works on the day of judgment (as some hold, agreeing too much with Romanists on this point).  The sentence to be pronounced by the supreme Judge will not be so much a new justification, as the solemn and public declaration of a sentence once passed and its execution by the assignment of the life promised with respect to an innocent person from the preceding justification.  Thus it is nothing else than an adjudicatory sentence of the possession of the kingdom of heaven from the right given before through justification.  And if works are then brought forward, they are not adduced as the foundation of a new justification to be obtained then, but as signs, marks and effects of our true faith and of our justification solely by it.”

Clearly, Venema and Turretin point out the historic Reformation point of view from which the New Perspectives on Paul and Federal Vision depart.  See here and here for earlier posts on a similar topic.  Read Turretin again – he lets the gospel of justification by faith alone remain good news.

Quote from Turretin found in his Institutes, vol II page 687.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Bavinck on Justification

On what basis does God justify the sinner?  Rome and others say that God justifies a person insofar as he is sanctified; in other words, God justifies someone because the person has some grace-infused obedience inside himself.  Rome and others (like the NPP) thus say that the Reformation position – that God justifies the ungodly by faith alone only on the grounds of an external righteousness (Christ’s) – is a legal fiction.    They call this historic Protestant position legal fiction because God justifies someone who is not actually good inside.  Bavinck turns this argument on its head: actually, the position of Rome (et. al.) is the one that distorts the justice of God in justification.  Here he is:

Besides the fact that Holy Scriptures very plainly speak of justification as a legal or forensic act, this further fact must be pointed out to the opponents of the doctrine of justification: they have a mistaken notion of what justification is.  They say that such an acquittal of man on the basis of a righteousness outside of himself is unworthy of man and that leaves him quite unchanged.  But this charge comes back upon the heads of those who make it, for if they justify a person on the basis of a righteousness which is in him, they must themselves certainly admit that this righteousness in man here on earth is very frail and imperfect, and must therefore conclude that God justifies a person on the basis of a very inadequate righteousness and thus makes himself guilty of a false judgment.  On the other hand, an acquittal based on the righteousness which is in Christ is a perfectly just one for it was presented perfectly by God himself in the Son of his love.

This is penetrating.  If God does justify a person insofar as he is sanctified, this justification is unjust, because a person’s sanctification is imperfect and mixed with sin, and God would be accounting someone righteous who is imperfectly righteous.  The historic Protestant position says that God justifies the ungodly based on the perfect obedience (righteousness) of Jesus Christ, which is credited to their account by a God-given faith alone.   Bavinck goes on to explain.

Justification and sanctification are not the same, and ought to be sharply differentiated from each other.  For whoever neglects or erases this distinction again sets up a self-righteousness in man, does injustice to the completeness and adequacy of the righteousness of God which has been manifested in Christ, changes the gospel into a new law, robs the soul of man of its only comfort, and makes salvation dependent upon human merits.  In justification, faith has only the role of a receiving agency, like that of the hand which accepts something; by it the soul places its dependency solely in Christ and his righteousness.  …[Faith] justifies not by its own intrinsic moral worth but by its content, namely, the righteousness of Christ.

This entire section on the topic of justification in Our Reasonable Faith is worth a thousand dollars (p 439-468).  If you read one ST this year, please, make it this one!  This book is a Reformation antidote to Rome, NPP, and FV and a catalyst for confessional piety.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Bavinck on Justification Part II: Imputation and Legal Fiction

As surely as the sun rises and sets each day, Herman Bavinck vigorously defended the imputation of Christ’s obedience in justification. In nearly prophetic language, he speaks to present day deniers of imputation: “The opponents of imputed righteousness should not lodge their objection against Luther and Calvin but against Paul.”

He goes on, especially dealing with an older Roman Catholic theologian, R. Bellarmine, who said that imputation was a legal fiction (the same language used by some today who deny imputation): “That picture [of legal fiction], however, is completely mistaken. Justification is as real as sanctification, and imputation is no less real than infusion. The only difference is this: in justification righteousness is granted to us in a juridicial sense, while in sanctification it becomes ours in an ethical sense. Both are very real and very necessary. The judge must first validate someone’s claim to a piece of property before one can take possession of it.”

“This first act [imputation] is not a fiction or an illusion that cuts no ice and conflicts with reality. On the contrary: needed first is an imputation of righteousness, the recognition of a claim, and only then can the infusion of righteousness follow, the act of taking possession of that to which one is entitled…. If God justifies the ungodly, that is not a fiction, a putative imputation, but a present and future reality…. After the ungodly have become righteous in a legal sense, they will certainly also become righteous in an ethical sense.”

In another helpful illustration, Bavinck wrote that imputation is like when a wealthy man legally adopts a poor child. The child, “can, as a future heir be called rich even though at the moment he or she does not yet own a penny.” In theological terms, as Bavinck said, we are not declared righteous based on something in us, but on something credited to our account – the righteousness/obedience of Christ. And those who are justified, will certainly be sanctified, but the former does not depend upon the latter.

No one can wrest Bavinck out of the arms of Reformed orthodoxy – Luther, Calvin, Turretin, Brakel, Berkhof, and others of that list would have embraced Bavinck with passion. Speaking of passion, let me re-quote Bavinck on imputation, just so no one misses it: “The opponents of imputed righteousness should not lodge their objection against Luther and Calvin, but against Paul.” [Side note: Bavinck here is also noting clearly that Calvin taught imputation.]

All quotes taken from Herman Bavinck, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 213-4.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Paul, Luther, Introspection and the NPP

  Here are a few lines from the summary of a lecture that Krister Stendahl (an early and influential figure in the NPP) gave to the American Psychological Association in September, 1961.  To be fair, in the introduction, the publisher (the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion) noted that this essay, a summary of the lecture, is a “working paper” that was not prepared for major publication (see JSSR, Spring, 1962, pages 261-265).

“…Western interpreters have found the common denominator between Paul and the experiences of Western man, since Paul’s statements about ‘justification by faith’ have been hailed as the answer to the problems which face the honest man in his practice of introspection.”

“A fresh look at the Pauline writings themselves show, however, that Paul was equipped with a rather ‘robust’ conscience.  He was entirely satisfied with his moral achievements under the Law and there were no signs of frustration in his Jewish obedience.  The sin to him was that he had persecuted Christ and his church, and he had no doubt repented from that sin.  As a Christian he was not plagued by a retrospective or introspective conscience.  While he knew his ‘weakness’ he did not call it ’sin.’”

“The image of a Paul who struggled with his conscience and who, in introspection, suffered under the inability to satisfy the ultimate demands of God…is copied on the experiences of men like Augustine and Martin Luther.”

More: “It has always puzzled historians that no one in the early church seemed to ‘understand’ Paul….  We would venture to suggest that the West for centuries has wrongly surmised that the biblical writers were grappling with problems which are no doubt ours, but which never entered their consciousness….”

At least Stendahl is clear.  Everyone in the Western church has misread Paul.  The poor guy!  You’d think someone, even one person, would get Paul right before 1961! 

shane lems

sunnyside wa

The Augsburg Confession (1530) and the NPP

I find article 20 of the Augsburg Confession anticipating the NPP in a very real way.  Notice the first sentences below (from art. 20).  I’ve bolded the words that caught my attention:

        And lest any one should craftily say that a new interpretation
        of Paul has been devised by us, this entire matter is
        supported by the testimonies of the Fathers. For Augustine, in
        many volumes, defends grace and the righteousness of faith,
        over against the merits of works. And Ambrose, in his De
        Vocatione Gentium, and elsewhere, teaches to like effect. For
        in his De Vocatione Gentium he says as follows: “Redemption by
        the blood of Christ would become of little value, neither
        would the preeminence of man’s works be superseded by the
        mercy of God, if justification, which is wrought through
        grace, were due to the merits going before, so as to be, not
        the free gift of a donor, but the reward due to the laborer.”
        
        But, although this doctrine is despised by the inexperienced,
        nevertheless God-fearing and anxious consciences find by
        experience that it brings the greatest consolation, because
        consciences cannot be set at rest through any works, but only
        by faith, when they take the sure ground that for Christ’s
        sake they have a reconciled God. As Paul teaches Rom. 5, 1:
        “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” This whole
        doctrine is to be referred to that conflict of the terrified
        conscience, neither can it be understood apart from that
        conflict. Therefore inexperienced and profane men judge ill
        concerning this matter, who dream that Christian righteousness
        is nothing but civil and philosophical righteousness. 
        
        Heretofore consciences were plagued with the doctrine of
        works, they did not hear the consolation from the Gospel. Some
        persons were driven by conscience into the desert, into
        monasteries hoping there to merit grace by a monastic life.
        Some also devised other works whereby to merit grace and make
        satisfaction for sins. Hence there was very great need to
        treat of, and renew, this doctrine of faith in Christ, to the
        end that anxious consciences should not be without consolation
        but that they might know that grace and forgiveness of sins
        and justification are apprehended by faith in Christ. 

shane

sunnyside wa

Law/Gospel and the NPP

Krister Stendahl (a huge figure in the NPP movement) began to suggest in the early 1960’s that the whole church has read Paul wrongly (i.e. introspectively) since Augustine.  Stendahl also did some work in the late ’60’s on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity; he was pleading for a new relationship based on a more Jewish and less Western Christian reading of Paul and the NT.  In this article he talked about anti-Semitism and the law/gospel distinction in Reformation theology.

After discussing what he calls the anti-semitist elements in the NT, he mentions a “more subtle…more powerful form of the anti-Jewish element in Christian theology to consider, especially in Protestantism and then most prominently in Lutheranism.  I refer to the theological model “Law and Gospel.” 

Wow.  This has many implications.  For one, he’s charging the Reformation law/gospel adherents of anti-semitism.   Any other implications come to mind?   Stay tuned for more on Stendahl….

Above quote taken from Krister Stendahl, “Judaism and Christianity: A Plea for a New Relationship” Cross Currents (1967: Fall), 450.  It originally appeared in the Fall 1967 Harvard Divinity Bulletin.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

Witherington, NPP, and the -ification Blender

 

Ben Witherington III, who has written helpful socio-rhetorical commmentaries on Mark, Acts, Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians, writes himself into the NPP crowd, at least on the issue of “getting in and staying in” (i.e. covenantal nomism).   Also note his lack of distinction between justification and sanctification.  Check this out:

“Through that salvific work of Christ a person has been set right – which means not only set back into a right relationship with God, or reckoned as righteous, but also set in the right moral direction as well.” 

“Paul has a vision of believers becoming righteous by grace through faith in Christ.  This of course begins by regaining right-standing with God, being set right, being set on the right moral course.  But since Paul also affirms what can be called final dikaiosyne (justification) it is important not to radically separate the term from notions of sanctification, for final ‘justification’ depends in one sense on that sanctification.  As 1 Cor. 1.30 makes evident, dikaiosyne should be associated with notions of holiness and redemption in Christ.”

“I would further maintain that Paul himself is far closer to the notion of covenantal nomism in his own theology than Sanders realizes.”

Finally, “It is time for us to once again appreciate the early Jewish matrix out of which Paul’s language about righteousness comes and to be thankful for the discussions of Sanders and his respondents, which have helped us get beyond the older and less helpful Protestant thinking both about early Judaism and what Paul means by diakaiosyne, even though Sanders was overreacting to the older Protestant complaint about legalism and works righteousness in early Judaism.”

Quotes taken from Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 105-107.

shane lems

sunnyside wa