RSSGrace, Merit, and Innocence
I would like to draw us back into the details. Especially with regard to the question of covenant and its relationship to justification. I was glad to see so many of the participants affirm the Confession. I am still a bit confused by Peter Leithart’s formulations.
Douglas Wilson has argued that the Reformed should, according to their own tradition, affirm God’s graciousness to man even before the fall from innocence. He will be pleased to know the RPCNA Testimony declares, “Covenants are God’s gracious instruments for the accomplishment of His purpose that the creation should serve Him (RPC Testimony, Introduction, paragraph 1.” Included here is the Covenant of Works/Life/Nature. The RPCNA Testimony affirms grace before the fall. So does the vast majority of the Reformed tradition. So far so good?
It is important that the graciousness of the Covenant of Works not be misunderstood. The Reformed Orthodox have understood that the use of grace here is nuanced. The pre-redemptive covenant was gracious, not in its consummation, but in its establishment. It was gracious of God to condescend to enter into covenant with His creature. It was gracious for God to transcend the stark eternal boundries of the Creator/creature relationship and seek fellowship with Adam. It was gracious to the race to offer consummation and higher life in response to the commanded obedience of the federal head. Here, at the point of entrance, is grace. Thus, the Reformed have skillfully steered between the Scylla and Charybdis of medievial realism and nominalism.
Against the via antiqua (realism) the Reformed affirmed that the Creator/creature distinction is so ultimate that no works, fallen or otherwise, can bind the justice of God on the basis of strict, raw (to use Doug Wilson’s phrase) merit.
Against the via moderna (nominalism) the Reformed affirmed that the Creator/creature distinction is not so ultimate that God gracious provision in covenant could not bind the Creator’s justice on the basis of merit according to the terms of the covenant.
Now, between the poles of realism and nominalism that Reformed have found themselves on various points of the spectrum. For some of the Reformed Orthodox, the relationship of merit according to the pact can stress the law as a holy transcript of God’s holiness (bringing it into closer connection with realism… here I would place Turretin, Owen). For others, the stress is on the Scotus school of volunatism seeing God’s covenant requirments as a reflection of soverign will and free choice (here we might include David Dickson and Samuel Rutherford).
The beauty of the position is that while it enjoys aspects of the realist/intellectual and nominalist/voluntarist traditions, it is free from the speculative abuses. It is rooted in the biblical conception of covenant. God has graciously made a covenant and thus His justice is REQUIRED to bless the works He has promised to reward. “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due (Romans 4:4).” The stress here is on the covenant merit upon which the Covenant of Works would be consummated by the federal head. Therefore, we are able to speak of grace and merit in the covenant of works.
Douglas Wilson has suggested that, if Adam had stood, his DUTY would have been to give praise to God. I have no problem as long as we can equally say that his RIGHT was to the covenant blessing of consummation. It is always a creatures duty to give praise to God. Only according to the blessings of the covenant is their a right established against God’s justice.
This is no small matter. It strikes at the heart of the work of the 2nd Adam. More to come.
Peter
September 28th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Bill, I’m not sure which of my formulations you found confusing. Could you clarify.
Peter
September 28th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Bill, one question so far: Is a blessing that comes from God’s justice somehow more secure that a blessing that comes from His mercy? If so, why?
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 9:53 am
The problem is that we don’t believe the Bible anywhere teaches this. Phil 2 says not that God rewarded Jesus but that God “graced” Him with the Name above all names. Jesus Himself says that when one has done ALL one is still an “unprofitable” servant — and only Jesus did ALL. When the Father says, “Well done, good Servant,” there is not merit, no RIGHT, but all grace. “Profit” has no part in the scheme. Moreover, there is nothing Adam was ever told to “do” that could have merited him anything. As the Confession says, he was to “continue,” and that’s all it says. Rom. 4:4 does not imply that there is someone who did “work” and therefore earned wages. No one ever did so. Jesus did not do so. It is because of this that so many Reformed theologians in the 20th century decided to put aside, gently, this scheme and investigate alternatives.
I could offer a much stronger criticism, but we are at the end of this discussion and I think I’ve said enough.
I can only ask that you consider my essay in *The Federal Vision.* If you’re going to interact with FV, you should do so.
W.H. Chellis
September 28th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Jim Jordan says, “No one ever did so. Jesus did not do so.”
Paul says, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous (Romans 5:18,19).”
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Ah, but this refers to the cross, does it not? I think so. “ONE act.” “Obedient .. unto death, the death of the cross” (Phil. 2). Shepherd has shown that in the Reformers “Christ’s righteousness” means His cross work. See his comments on the OPC report at http://www.federal-vision.com
So, we could debate this, no?
D Hart
September 28th, 2007 at 11:07 am
James, what you think if I wrote that the OPC report on justification has shown that Christ’s righteousness refers to his passive and active obedience? Would that solve anything for you? Probably not. So why do you keep citing Sheperd?
W.H. Chellis
September 28th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Sure, we could debate it. But we would be engaging a very old debate. It was raised by Piscator, Twisse, and others but always rejected by the mainstream Reformed tradition.
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
My point is very simple: Rev. Chellis presented an argument that assumes that certain texts are clear in their meaning. I argue that they may well mean something else. Both positions are within the Reformed tradition, and one of the most objectionable aspects of the recent closing of the Calvinistic mind is the refusal of people to allow for this discussion to take place. One thing is absolutely certain: The Divines deliberately refused to take a stand on this matter, so it is unconfessional to be dogmatic about it.
I cited Shepherd (note the second “h”) only so that people could go and see arguments on the other side of this matter clearly presented. And presented by a man fully exonerated by the faculty of WTS and by his presbytery in the OPC, a minister in good standing in the CRC.
W.H. Chellis
September 28th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
James. Let me be clear about your position. Do you reject the imputation of the active obedience of Christ? This seems to me to be what you are saying.
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Yes. I reject it. For it I substitute union with the resurrected Jesus by the Spirit, which gives to me all the things that Jesus is, including His perfection. The NT has nothing to say about imputation of active obedience, and about 1000 things to say about union with the resurrected Jesus.
In the rituals, the sinner leans on the animal and his death is imputed to the animal, which immediately dies. The animal does NOT put his blameless paw on the sinner. Rather, in union with the animal, after the propitiatory display of blood on the altar/doorpost, the worshipper is entered into the transfiguring fire of God’s presence and ascends to God. “Those whom He justified them He also glorified.” They are always together, never separated.
Or course, since the Westminster Confession and the other reformed Confessions do not take a position on the “imputation of active obedience,” I’m free to discuss the option I briefly presented here. Even if I’m wrong, I’m within the Reformed faith. Or what the Reformed faith used to be, at any rate.
Jason J. Stellman
September 28th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Mr. Jordan,
Is the “union with the resurrected Jesus” with which you replace the imputation of Christ’s active obedience the “real and inseparable” union of the Westminster Standards, or is it a “covenantal union” which can be lost?
If the latter, how does the FV fulfill its pastoral goal to be a source of comfort to doubting saints?
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
If I might say a bit more, the problem as I see it is that the Western church, including here the Reformed faith, has a very weak view of theopoesis, deification, or glorification (pick your term). The Levitical rituals are very clear: propitiation and glorification go right together. Romans 8 is also very clear. 2 Cor. is very clear. But Reformed have postponed glorification, and that has been a bad exegetical and hence theological mistake.
What gets put into “imputation of active obedience for justification” actually belongs as “union with Jesus’ resurrection for glorification.” But the category mistake in the Reformed faith has meant a collapse of glorification language into justification language. We are declared just by Jesus’ death for us on the cross. We get what Adam failed to mature to — glory — by virtue of union with His resurrection.
This is a world-view error, and is the one place where a good dose of the Fathers and a tiny dose of Orthodoxy would do the Reformed faith some good.
D Hart
September 28th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
James, how can a sinner be united to one who is righteous? I have never understood how simply claiming union resolves the difficulty of my need for an alien righteousness. Plus, why does union do away with the imputation of righteousness? I was united to Adam and his sin was imputed to me. Or do you not believe in the imputation of Adam’s sin?
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
I believe in the imputation of Adam’s sin. There are many views on this, as you know. Since I’m united to Jesus, His “alien” righteousness is now mine. But this is never apart from being united to His glory. I’m united to HIM, not to some reified aspect of Him.
I’m not sure why I need “alien” righteousness anyway, though. Jesus’ death is my forgiveness, and puts me back where Adam was in the beginning. The “more” that Jesus gives me is not some righteousness but is glory, the mature “perfect” estate Adam was to grow into.
I’m trying to use these various words in their more stipulated ST sense.
JMeyers
September 28th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Just to be clear here, there was no debate in the Westminster Assembly about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. We all believe in an alien righteousness, Dr. Hart. But the debated question was and continues to be: did that imputed righteousness include the merit of Christ’s good works performed during his life on earth? Not everyone agreed on this in the 17th-century Reformed church and the Assembly decided not to include the phrase “active obedience,” but rather to adopt wording that would embrace both parties of theological opinion on the question.
Please note that there is no controversy among the FV men about the forensic character of justification, nor about the fact that Christ’s righteousness is reckoned to us by faith. The controversy is about this notion of the merit of Christ’s “active works” of obedience being transferred to us. We see no biblical support for such a conception. Neither did some in the Westminster Assembly. But whatever one may think of the FV claims here, the point is that an extra-confessional litmus test is being brought to bear against the FV men.
Dr. Van Dixhoorn spoke at a pre-GA conference on the Westminster Assembly a few years ago. He was perfectly clear that the Assembly debated this issue and that the consensus compromise was to write the confession in such a way that allowed ministers who did not believe in the imputation of the active obedience of Christ to subscribe. How then can it be made a litmus test today when it is not stated nor even implied in the Westminster Documents?
Consider also what the Scottish theologian William Cunningham has to say about the debate:
To affirm the imputation of the active obedience of Christ may be traditional in some circles, and Reformed ministers are free to believe it, but for some to insist that assent to this formulation would now be required of those who subscribe to the Westminster Standards is quite untraditional. To insist that everyone line up on this is extra-confessional and extra-traditional. In effect, it canonizes one party within the Reformed tradition.
Jason J. Stellman
September 28th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Mr. Meyers,
How, then, would you understand the Confession’s use of Christ’s “obedience and satisfaction” being imputed to us? Though the phrase “active and passive obedience” is avoided, does it not still point us to what Jesus did both in his life (obedience) and in his death (satisfaction)?
And by the way, I put forward a question to James above that I fear may get lost amid the flurry of activity, but it is an important question that I would appreciate an FV proponent addressing.
W.H. Chellis
September 28th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Jeff, I am not sure this is so clear.
To quote again from Carl Trueman:
“The question of the active/passive righteousness was raised early on at the Westminster Assembly before the arrival of the Scottish delegation, at a point in the proceedings when the debate was really focused on the revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles. In a series of speeches on Article 11, “Of the Justification of Man before God,” Daniel Featley offered the most elaborate and significant arguments for teh twofold righteousness of Christ in justification. Ultimatey, Featley won the day, with the majority of divines approving the term “whole obedience and satisfaction” in the revised article, although the adjective “whole” is pointedly absent from the Westminster Confession 11:3. Given the content of questions 70-73 of the Larger Catechism, however, it is difficult to read huge significance into this omission: it is at most a concession ot the minority part of Twisse and Gataker.”
To quote from Q and A. 73: How is justification an act of God’s free grace?
A. Although Christ, by HIS OBEDIENCE and death, did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice… imputing His righteousness to them…”
Not to mention the fact that the NAPARC churches have been undivided in finding that the FV is outside the boundries of confessional orthodoxy at this very point. Which again raises the question of churchmanship.
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
The NAPARC churches have found that a fantasy “FV” of their own imagination is outside the bounds of confessional orthodoxy. There has been no evaluation of anything remotely like what those considered “FV” actually believe and have written.
barlow
September 28th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Dr. Hart, I’m curious about your first question - “how can a sinner be united to one who is righteous?” It sounds as if you’re concerned about something like an ontological contamination, but I know that can’t be it.
So… what *is* the nature of your theological objection to righteousness via union? Please unpack why the union of a sinner with one who is righteous would be problematic. I’m assuming you do not believe in the immaculate conception, and so Jesus’ very incarnation could be criticized with the same rhetorical question, could it not?
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Mr. Stellman, there is absolutely no comfort for saints in the doctrine of a “real and inseparable” union that is an aspect of the decree known only to God. This teaching is apophatic and is a limiting concept, necessary but not related to comfort. Comfort lies in faith in Jesus Christ and union with Him by faith.
JMeyers
September 28th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I think it is clear. The language of active/passive is not used in our standards for the doctrine of imputation. I don’t have to accept it. I’m a good churchman. I’m in submission to my presbytery and have vowed to make my exceptions to the WCF known.
Furthermore, there is no mention of the merit of Christ’s “active” good works being “transfered” or “imputed” to us.
I have no problem with the catechism questions you quote. But they don’t say everything you think they do.
My understanding is that the OPC GA did not adopted the study committee’s report. That motion failed. The report’s conclusions are simply the studied opinion of the men on the committee. It was sent out to the churches in the denomination, it’s true. But it has yet to be made the official position of the OPC. Isn’t that correct?
barlow
September 28th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
I love Trueman’s work as a doctrinal historian, but his statement about the difficulty of reading significance into an omission has the whiff of special pleading. Especially since that very “omission” was remedied when the baptists adopted their revised version of the WCF.
LC 71 (not 73 as you labeled it) certainly includes Christ’s OBEDIENCE as part of his satisfaction, but the answer nowhere says that his OBEDIENCE is somehow imputed to us in abstraction from his overall verdict “righteous” that was pronounced on Christ not only for his obedience but for all he said and did for us.
LC 71 is totally harmonious with the synthesis given here by Jordan and Meyers - Christ’s sinless life, his death, resurrection, ascension and session were all for us sinners. And how does that saving work get applied to us? How do we inhabit the satisfaction? How does Christ become our propitiation? By union with the justified Christ, in whom we have all other saving graces.
W.H. Chellis
September 28th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
James Jordan wrote: “The NAPARC churches have found that a fantasy “FV†of their own imagination is outside the bounds of confessional orthodoxy. There has been no evaluation of anything remotely like what those considered “FV†actually believe and have written.”
Well, they did condemn the FV’s rejection of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. You have stipulated that this is, indeed, your position. So apparently it was not that fantastic, right?
Jason J. Stellman
September 28th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Mr. Jordan,
I agree that “comfort lies in faith in Jesus Christ and union with Him by faith,” as you wrote. But if there is “abolutely no comfort” in a union “that is an aspect of the divine decree,” then what do you make of the fact that the WCF says that our assurance results from “the divine truths of God’s promises” which, after all, we only know we’re heirs of by a faith that includes the aspect of fiducia?
And conversely, if the union through which the FV says we are justified is not the “real and inseparable” union of our Standards, then can it be lost? And if so, how?
If you answer, “By failing to abide in the Vine,” then what has become of the “P” in our beloved acrostic? Can I not take comfort in the fact that I am in Christ, and though I need to guard against falling away, I still know that he holds me in the palm of his hand, and that as long as I’m looking to Christ I cannot but persevere?
It seems to me that that’s what Calvinism is all about.
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I’m not sure. The fact is that SOME “FV” people are happy with that terminology, so it’s not about “FV.” Moreover, the truly bizarre thing is conflating FV with NPP, since they have no connection at all. It gives me little confidence in these committees when they don’t know enough to know how completely different they are. What is called “FV” had come into existence long before anyone had heard of NTWright. To be sure, all of us appreciate some of Wright’s work — but then again,who doesn’t?
Fact is, questions of imputation don’t have anything to do with “FV” one way or another. Here is the statement some of us finally, in desperation, put out about what we think, from the Joint FV Statement: (I may add, re: the ongoing conversation, that I wish we had put “Jesus” for “Christ” for the most part.)
Union with Christ and Imputation
We affirm Christ is all in all for us, and that His perfect sinless life, His suffering on the cross, and His glorious resurrection are all credited to us. Christ is the new Adam, obeying God where the first Adam did not obey God. And Christ as the new Israel was baptized as the old Israel was, was tempted for 40 days as Israel was for 40 years, and as the greater Joshua He conquered the land of Canaan in the course of His ministry. This means that through Jesus, on our behalf, Israel has finally obeyed God and has been
accepted by Him. We affirm not only that Christ is our full obedience, but also that through our union with Him we partake of the benefits of His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and enthronement at the right hand of God the Father.
We deny that faithfulness to the gospel message requires any par ticular doctrinal formulation of the “imputation of the active obedience of Christ.†What matters is that we confess that our salvation is all of Christ, and not from us.
D Hart
September 28th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Barlow, my concern with union is that it is often used as a trump card to resolve all tensions in the application of redemption. I’m still not sure what the sequence is with union playing such a large role, and not knowing exactly what union is. Is it the kind of union between a federal head and the rest of his people? That makes sense to me. But some seem to suggest that I can’t be justified until at a certain time I am united to Christ. Hence the confusion. How could a sinner be in such a close relationship with a righteous one? Why wouldn’t the sinner have to be justified first?
JMeyers
September 28th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Yes, Jordan is correct. We deny that the Gospel message demands this particular theological formulation: “the imputation of the active obedience of Christ.” Furthermore, we deny that uttering such a shibboleth is evidence of proper adherence to Reformed tradition or to the Reformation doctrine of justification. The Reformed tradition allows for diversity in this.
How can this possibly be denied by men who hold forth as keepers of the Reformed tradition? A second year seminary student can discover that this is the case after a few hours in a good theological library.
Consider this quotation from the well-known Scottish Reformed theologian Robert Rollock (d. 1588), the first Principal of the University of Edinburgh:
“It may be demanded, Had it not been sufficient for our good, and to the end he might redeem us, if he had only lived well and holily, and not also so to have suffered death for us? I answer, it had not sufficed. For all his most holy and righteous works had not satisfied the justice and wrath of God for our sins, nor merited the mercy of God, reconciliation, righteousness, and life eternal for us. The reason is, for that the justice of God did require for our breach of God’s covenant, that we should be punished with death eternal, according to the condition denounced and annexed to the promise of that covenant. Therefore, no good works of our own, or of any mediator for us, after the breach of that covenant of works, could have satisfied the justice of God, which of necessity after a sort required the punishment and death of the offender, or certainly of some mediator in his stead. If, then, all the good and holy works of the Mediator could not satisfy that wrath and justice of God for sin, it is clear they could not merit any new grace or mercy of God for us.
But you will say, that the good and holy works of Christ our Mediator have wrought some part at least of that satisfaction, whereby God’s justice was appeased for us, and some part of that merit whereby God’s favour was purchased for us? I answer, these works did serve properly for no part of satisfaction or merit for us: for that, to speak properly, the death of Christ and his passion only did satisfy God’s justice, and merited his mercy for us.
If any will yet farther demand, May we not divide the satisfaction and merit of Christ into his doings and sufferings, that we may speak on this manner, Christ by his death and passion hath satisfied God’s justice, and by his good and holy works he hath merited God’s mercy for us, that so satisfaction may be ascribed to his death, and merit to his works; that the righteousness wherewith we are justified before God may be partly the satisfaction which Christ performed by his death for us, partly the merits which he obtained by his works for us? I answer; to speak properly, the satisfaction and merit which is by the passion of Christ only, both was and is our righteousness, or the satisfactory and meritorious death of Christ, or the satisfaction which was by Christ’s death, or the merit of his death, or the obedience of Christ, as being obedient to his Father unto the death, the death also of the cross, to be short, that justice of Christ which he obtained when in his passion he satisfied his Father’s wrath- this is our righteousness. For we may say, that either the death of Christ, or his satisfaction, or his merit, or his obedience, or his righteousness, is imputed unto us for righteousness. For all these are taken for one and the same thing.
But here it may be replied, If the works of Christ cannot properly procure for us any satisfaction nor merit, nor any part of satisfaction or merit, then it may be demanded, What hath been, and what is the use of Christ’s works, or of his active obedience, or of
the obedience of his life? I answer, that the holiness of the person of Christ, and of his natures, divine and human, and of his works, is the very ground or foundation of the satisfaction and merit which we have in the passion of Christ. That is, the excellency and worthiness of that person and of his works did cause that his passion was both satisfactory and meritorious: for if this person which suffered had not been so holy and excellent, as also his life so pure and godly, it is most certain that his passion could neither have satisfied God’s wrath nor merited mercy for us. For which cause the Apostle, (Heb. vii. 26,) speaking of this ground of his meritorious passion of Christ, saith that such an high priest it became us to have, which is holy, blameless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens.”
From A Treatise of God’s Effectual Calling, pp. 53-55 in The Select Works
of Robert Rollock, Vol. 1 (Woodrow Society 1849)
Whether you agree with Rollock or even care about the cogency of his argument the point is that he was free as a Reformed theologian hold to the points he makes here:
1) The active obedience of Christ does not acquire merit that is somehow transferred or imputed to us.
2) To speak of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, merit, or obedience is the same as saying the imputation of his passive obedience, that is his act of sacrifice on the cross.
C) Christ’s active obedience (his life) serves as the ground of the passive obedience (his death).
D) The passion of Christ (his death/ passive obedience) is the satisfaction for sins and meritorious ground for our justification.
barlow
September 28th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Right, we don’t want union to be theological caulk. But I think it is proper to say that we can’t be justified without union; otherwise we risk a legal fiction where the transition in justification is from one divine appraisal (guilty) to another (innocent) simply by fiat. Jesus is such a beautiful groom that the bride is beautified *in* him, not *for* him. As for what union is, it is the Holy Spirit’s uniting us, body and soul, to Christ’s risen human nature and thus to God. Union does not occur simply in the accounting of heaven as we are transferred from the “Adam” column to the “Jesus” column on the federal headship spreadsheet. This theme is strong in the tradition, in fact the Westminster documents speak of the natural body as still being in union with Christ even in the grave, awaiting resurrection.
The model for initial union is carried forward in communion. We are put into Christ, and we eat his flesh and his word and drink his blood as our ongoing nourishment. The Spirit enables our initial union and the Spirit enables our ongoing feeding.
I want to resist what seems to be a kind of scale of being assumption in your objection about a sinner’s being in a close relationship with God. God is in a close “relationship” with every human, even those in hell. And Jesus ate with all manner of sinners on earth, had a momma who was a sinner, friends like John and Peter, etc. Jesus is friend to sinners; he becomes our propitiation as we are in him. How would a sinner get Christ’s righteousness outside of Christ anyway?
As for a detailed metaphysical explanation of the nature of the link between believers and Christ, we don’t have all the information we need. I do know:
1. The Spirit is the bond (”The Spirit of Christ”)
2. It does not make us selfsame with the being of God anymore than the Wife becomes the Husband in marriage.
3. It is a living union because the Spirit is living
4. It is not only a spreadsheet union - a bookkeeping union. But even if it were “only” social, it would still be metaphysical if we are inherently relational beings - there is no “mere association” for humans made in the image of a social God.
D Hart
September 28th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
JMyers, I don’t see this quote doing for you what you think it does. Yes, I can see that Rollock rolls active and passive obedience into one. But he’s still concerned to do justice both to satisfying divine justice and to the merits of Christ’s faithfulness. That is why, at least as I read it, he write that Christ’s works (which I read as active obedience) “is the very ground or foundation of the satisfaction and merit which we have in the passion of Christ.” For one thing, I thought FV rejected the idea of merit and here is one of your quotations using it left and right. Second, it looks to me like Rollock is not saying (to use my language) that the passive obedience of Christ is sufficient. Instead, he’s saying that the active obedience is what makes the passive obedience work both to satisfy divine justice and to make us holy.
Anyway, why do you resist active obedience? Please don’t say because the Bible and the confession don’t say it. What theological, pastoral, liturgical gain do you get from denying active obedience. My hunch is that it props up the Sheperd idea of obedient faith, or in other words, it fights anti-nominianism so that the person with faith needs to be faithful to be saved.
D Hart
September 28th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Barlow, we were united to Adam, right? Was that the work of the spirit? To keep the symmatery, why would our union with Christ need the work of the spirit? Why couldn’t it be by fiat, as in the eternal decree?
I don’t think marriage helps explains the notion. Yes, the husband and bride are united, but not to become one body. They are still two bodies.
I don’t mean to be so literal, but again, the appeal to union is not nearly as clarifying as some think it is. Which is why I keep asking about how a sinner can be united to a righteous one, whether by being made one body or by being married? The Bible forbids mixed marriages.
JMeyers
September 28th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Sorry, prof. Hart, but I don’t deny the active obedience of Christ. The distinction between active and passive obedience is somewhat artificial and not required by our confessional standards or the Scriptures. But I don’t deny that Jesus was active in his obedience.
What I deny is that the active obedience of Christ is imputed to the Christian as if Jesus merited something from God for us. What I repudiate is the idea that Jesus moral achievements are somehow transfered to us. I find nothing in the Scripture to indicate any such thing. Nothing.
I rolled out the Rollock quote because the whole point of his argument was to deny that Jesus’ active obedience merited something for us. That there are two separate “things” that are imputed to us in justification. There’s no other way to read this. Yeah, he uses the word merit, but EXCLUSIVELY to refer to the satisfaction rendered by means of Christ’s death. I don’t really have a problem with that, even though the Bible does not use that language. What I do have a problem with is speaking of the works of Christ during his life in such a way that he is thought to have racked up points to earn God’s favor according to some fictional, still-in-force-after-the-fall, strict-justice covenant of works, and that these merits are then transferred to Christians.
Nobody here ever said that “the passive obedience of Christ is sufficient.” Of course, Jesus needed to be born, live sinlessly, teach flawlessly, etc. in order to be a well-pleasing sacrifice to God. Hurray for Jesus’ “active obedience.” Hurray for his sinless life. But he wasn’t racking up points to satisfy God’s justice and transfer these earned credits to us.
D Hart
September 29th, 2007 at 7:56 am
JMyers, you didn’t answer my question, which was why a denial of active obedience of Christ is so important to you other than on biblicist grounds — that is, the Bible doesn’t teach it. (By that criteria, why don’t you reject Rollock since he uses “merit” which is also unbiblical?) What do you gain by denying the active obedience of Christ, which is what you do since what we are talking about in that phrase is the active obedience of Christ being imputed to us. No one ever accused FV of denying Christ’s sinless life. So what is to be gained theologically or practically or liturgically? As I indicated, it seems to fit with the Sheperd project of teaching an obedient faith and avoiding anti-nominianism.
I still don’t think Rollock supports your point since he uses the word merit and makes the case that Christ’s active obedience is what makes his passion efficacious in placating God’s wrath and in “purchasing God’s favor.” For him, Christ’s death does both, and the only way it does so is by Christ’s perfect life. In other words, Rollock is still working within the categories that the language of active and passive obedience work signify.
I also wonder if you would have sent a telegram to correct Machen on his death bed. He wrote to Murray, “the active obedience of Christ, no hope without it.” Would you say, “the active obedience of Christ, plenty of hope without it”?
barlow
September 29th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Ah, the Machen telegram; the ultimate appeal to emotion in our circles! And yet it has zero relevance for this discussion.
Perhaps you could demonstrate where Pastor Meyers has said there is hope apart from the active obedience of Christ? Jeff is not questioning the necessity of the active obedience of Christ for salvation, he is questioning one answer given to the manner in which the active obedience of Christ is necessary for salvation and how it is that we sinners benefit from it.
D Hart
September 30th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Barlow, sorry to be sappy about one of the greats of the Reformed faith. Machen’s story still moves me, as does his defense of the active obedience of Christ.
Oh, but wait. Pastor Myers isn’t questioning the benefits of the active obedience of Christ for sinnners. He’s only defending his Christian liberty. So maybe you can explain what all the fuss is about. Or should I snicker about the naivete of Machen’s dying words?