RSSLaw, Gospel, and Justification
Following upon on my earlier post, let me continue.
To reject a covenant of works based on perfect obedience is to create real confusion (pastoral and academic) over the nature of justification. Some argue that the law/gospel distinction is Lutheran and not Reformed. This is because they have not read enough of the Reformed tradition and because they have failed to understand the controling nature of the Covenant of Works as synonymous with the law.
This creates a great threat to our doctrine of justification. Now, I realize that law/gospel is not necessarily absolute and that the law serves the gospel even for the regenerate (3rd use of the law). Still, at the point of justification, law and gospel are absolutely antithetical.
Therefore, although the faith that justifies is the same faith that works by love (Gal. 5:6) we are not justified by the working or the love. Rather faith, acting as an instrument, recieves and rests upon Christ’s benefits (faith’s passive office) and goes on to working through love (faith’s active office).
Further, I realize that faith, in its passive office of resting and recieving is a living and active faith that takes hold of Christ. No one is denying this fact. Rather, we are trying to make clear that faith, as an instruement, is not a work that leads to justification. Rather, it is a faith that takes hold of rest.
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
I’m justified because Jesus died for me.
Dave Reese
September 28th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Indeed the Westminster divines were careful to state it as:
11.1. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on him and his righteousness, by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.
This is meant to state the role of faith in one coming to Christ for justification (in other words, not yet justified). But then notice the past tense in the very next section of the same chapter when discussing the role of faith in the one now justified:
11.2. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.
This is stating what we read in passages such as 1 Tim. 1:5, which makes it clear that love issues from faith…it is not faith (cf. 2 Tim. 1:13 which also distinguishes faith and love).
W.H. Chellis
September 28th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
James… according to FV doctrine, you cannot know that. You might commit apostasy and be seperated from Christ.
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Yes, I know it totally and fully. It’s true as long as I’m in union with Jesus. If I sin and apostatize, then it’s no longer true for me. The NT says this about 25 places, so it must be true. Salvation is in Jesus Christ.
What you are asking me to know is the future, which is impossible. To know the future is to operate by sight, not faith. I trust Jesus, my Savior, Lord, Brother, Husband, and Friend. That’s faith.
W.H. Chellis
September 28th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Since you cannot know the future, by your own standards, you cannot know that Christ died for YOU. You can only have a suspicion that He might have since you are presently confessing Him.
I am just going by what you are telling me.
Peter
September 28th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Bill, could you please explain the alternative? Are YOU sure you won’t apostatize? How?
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Nope. I know that Jesus died for ME.
I don’t deny mystery here. Perhaps someone else could put it better.
I can say that Jesus died “for” everyone alive in the world at present, for He is the Hilasterion, the Ark-Cover, which is the Firmament between heaven and earth. He is the New Sky. God sees all the world through Him and His blood/death. I can freely say to any person, “God loves you and Jesus died for you.” That’s 100% true. It’s clearly taught in Lev. 16, for anyone acquainted with the Levitical imagery (which I freely admit takes some time to learn; at least it’s taken me many years!). And it’s in Romans 3. Of course, if a person dies without faith, then he moves out from this world, out from under the New Sky, and is lost. But as long as he’s here, he benefits from Jesus’ death, which took place up in the air between heaven and earth and put blood on the four corners of the earth, covering it.
I trust that, so Jesus died for ME.
“You” (the Chellis who asks, not necessarily the Chellis who exists) want to know if Jesus died in the (very true) “particular redemption” sense for me as an elect person. But that’s known only to God. To seek to know that is, I submit, to seek to operate by sight. I must operate by faith.
I believe that the framers of our confessions knew this. They knew that in their decretal theology they were operating apophatically, doing negative theology, preserving the Godness of God against the Arminians. All 100% necessary, and a great advance in our corporate Churchly understanding. But they also knew that no “verses” in the Bible expressly deal with this matter (except, I would say, Gen. 1:1). It is a matter of arguing by eminence, analogy, and negation. When God says in Ephesians 1 that He has sovranly elected people from the foundation of the world to be baptized into His church, this by way of eminence also means that He has elected people to be found at the end.
They did NOT want to submit prooftexts. But what has happened is that the WCF has wrongly been made into an hermeneutical guide for reading the Bible. Passages footnoted (at the demand of Parliament) as EVIDENCE for a given teaching have been taken as MEANING that doctrine. But Eph. 1 is not about election for eternity, but about election into the historical community. Similarly, the doctrine of particular redemption arises from (by way of eminence and analogy) from many things in the Bible, but it is not a “comfort” teaching since I cannot know it. I can only know “that” it is true. What I “know,” as the Vrijgemaacht realized so well, is the promises of God.
And believe me, “FV” is pretty much “Liberated” all the way; well, most of the way.
James Jordan
September 28th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
BTW, though this is not really “FV” stuff per se, it’s a good conversation. Thanks, Rev. Chellis.
barlow
September 28th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Is this an epistemological question, really? What Jordan can “know”? I don’t think it is.
The Reformed tradition has the promotional claim that its theology of perseverance is assurance-granting, but this cannot be. No theology is assurance granting except for universalism and atheism.
What is assurance granting are forms of piety - a learning to live with and trust God day by day. Arminians and Calvinists both learn assurance granting forms of piety. The fact that apostasy is a possibility for Arminians should be no more confidence-wrecking than the fact that being deceived about one’s election should be confidence-wrecking for Calvinists.
Now, back to the theology of the matter, compare salvation to marriage. None of us knows whether we will remain faithful to our wives, but we do not deny that a marriage currently exists. Sure, if we leave our wives, or if they leave us there will be a sense in which all of the photos of “the happy years” will be reinterpreted. But we would never claim that marriage never existed.
In salvation, we want to make a very clean distinction between true salvation and temporary faith or common operations of the spirit. Mainly this is because of the doctrine of perseverance of the saints (and perhaps because of limited atonement). And yes, it is true that with regards to those whom God purposes to save, God will not be deterred. But at the same time, there are those in whom God works for a time via these “common operations.” And for a time they have a real relationship with God, however qualitatively different it may be from the kind of relationship the elect have with God. The fact that this happens should not shake the faith of the true believer. Knowing we’re elect is no more possible than knowing the future is. All we can know is what God asks of us now, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him. We believers believe he gave us a gift of faith and a conditional promise of salvation - and we will either persevere in the means of grace, or we will sidetrack and partake of the means of damnation - doubting God, being prideful, losing faith. In retrospect - sure, our perseverance can only be chalked up to God’s working in us, but that is not and cannot be a part of our piety since we cannot always distinguish between temporary faith and the faith that God sustains in us.
The point is this - God’s promises are true and sure. In baptism he makes a conditional promise and if we fall short, it will be because we leave God and despise his covenant. And if we are faithful it will be because we are faithful to God and remain humble in his covenant. Sure, the explanation for our faithfulness is wholly God’s grace. But that doesn’t negate the integrity of second causes. God uses means of salvation that we can see. He also uses means of damnation. We aren’t saved in our sleep and we aren’t damned in our sleep either. Damnation is via unfaithfulness, just as salvation is via faith.
As for whether Christ died for *me* - this is a question about Christ’s intentions, which is a question about his plan, which is a question I have no data to answer. The only thing we have is the observation of the application of Christ’s redemption to us, and that application takes place by means of grace as described above.
tim prussic
September 28th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Mr. Chellis, you’ve written, “…in its passive office of resting and receiving is a living and active faith that takes hold of Christ. No one is denying this fact.” I’m not so sure that no one is denying this. I agree that it seems odd to deny that justifying faith is living faith. What, after all, are the other options? If one thinks thinks he’s justified because of the liveliness of his faith, he in error and he’s not looking to Christ alone. Anyway, I appreciate your post above quite a bit, but I think that some folks ARE denying what you’ve affirmed. I read a significant interchange ‘twixt Pastors Wilson and Scott Clark only a few months back in which Dr. Clark accused Pastor Wilson of unwittingly leading folks back to Rome because the latter insists upon a living and active justifying faith (though he qualified it just as well has you have, I think). Thus, I really think you’ve missed a significant aspect of the opposition to the FV. Is it possible that such opposition tempts FVers to make statements stronger or less guarded than they otherwise would?
D Hart
September 28th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Barlow writes: “God’s promises are true and sure. In baptism he makes a conditional promise and if we fall short, it will be because we leave God and despise his covenant. And if we are faithful it will be because we are faithful to God and remain humble in his covenant. Sure, the explanation for our faithfulness is wholly God’s grace. But that doesn’t negate the integrity of second causes. God uses means of salvation that we can see. He also uses means of damnation. We aren’t saved in our sleep and we aren’t damned in our sleep either. Damnation is via unfaithfulness, just as salvation is via faith.”
Why doesn’t this sound reassuring? The point of the doctrine of justification by faith was — at least one point — is that I won’t have to wonder if I were being faithful enough. Rome also teaches that human faithfulness is all of God’s grace and it also talks a lot about the conditional nature of using the means of grace. But Geneva, Wittenburg and Canterbury taught that my salvation does not depend on my believing hard enough or attending the means of grace sincerely enough, or worshiping intensely enough. That is why as I’ve understood it Heidelberg talks about being right with God only by true faith. “Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments . . . nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.” (Can you say active obedience of Christ? Sure you can.)
That is truly good news. My faithfulness is not.
barlow
September 28th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I’m not talking about degrees of faithfulness; not sure where you got that idea. In the sense I was talking about it, one is either faithful to God or not. The faithful man is not the perfect man, he is the repentant man, the humble man. He is the man with docility.
Nor am I talking about our being saved by merits accumulated by our faithfulness, even if such faithfulness is spirit-wrought.
Nor am I talking about our justification; I was careful to talk about our salvation which begins with that initial union where what is Christ’s is imputed to me - I have his righteousness, no doubt. Now, salvation is about more than initial union with Christ or justification, and it is plain jane vanilla Reformed theology to say that perseverance is necessary for salvation. Of course, God preserves the elect. And what does his preservation look like? It looks like perseverance.
As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “good works are non-contributory means of salvation” - I think that’s a clever way to put it.
God is Van Til’s “all conditioner” - that’s my point - and he ordains the means of salvation and the means of damnation, but that doesn’t negate the necessity of those means nor does it risk the temptation to think that I’m justified by anything other than Christ’s righteousness. The point of this particular thread was apostasy and perseverance - and a sense of assurance is not bolstered by Calvinistic soteriology nor is it hindered by an Arminian one, even if we know the Calvinistic one to be true.
efwakeman
September 28th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
What is more reassuring than this?
Rom 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.â€
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So is what is being suggested here that when Paul says “…anything in all creation…” that he actually means, “…anything in all creation except our sinful, unfaithful hearts”?
Doesn’t assurance come from faith in God’s character because of our inability to “keep covenant” with Him?
D Hart
September 29th, 2007 at 7:46 am
Barlow, you wrote: “In baptism he makes a conditional promise and if we fall short, it will be because we leave God and despise his covenant. And if we are faithful it will be because we are faithful to God and remain humble in his covenant.” That sounds like a lot depends on me and some degree of faithfulness. If I’m faithful to my wife for 50 years but went to see a hooker one night, does that make me faithful? It looks to me like you’ve turned the means of grace into a threat. What should be a comfort now becomes something I need to do to be saved.
Maybe you can state it better, but I don’t find your explanation to be any more helpful. You seem to be saying that I can be justified but not saved. How’s that?
I am beginning to sense that by tinkering with doctrines like assuance, justification etc., FV is not only undermining confidence in Reformed theology — oh, what a minute, the Reformed churches have always taught you could lose your salvation — but also in the mercy of God and his promise in Jesus Christ.