RSSIf It’s Not Broken . . .
Maybe the discussion is over but I’ll make one last comment. Two weeks ago we started with the question of what in the Reformed tradition was in need of fixing and how FV was trying to do this. Most recently we have been debating IAOC as one of the specific points that FV may be trying to remedy.
But the response to Machen has been less than persuasive, to me at least. The responses seem to be that IAOC is not broken. But neither is it that compelling or interesting or necessary or something. It seems to be like light beer — you drink it and you taste nothing. IAOC doesn’t motivate the FV folks.
I don’t mean to be obnoxious about this, but I do detect some condescension about this. It’s as if IAOC is an older concept that is now out of date considering all of the insights of BT regarding Paul, the law, and a host of other considerations. James Jordan keeps refering to individualistic accounts of salvation as akin to the Four Spiritual Laws. And we all know — wink, wink — how lame those are.
But I actually need salvation and IAOC. With Machen I can say that I have no hope without it. And the reason why I am opposed to those who are unwilling to affirm it as essential to the gospel is personal. These people don’t seem to understand my plight, my guilt before the law, my need to be perfect if I am to commune with God, and my need for a perfect savior who not only died for my sins but lived perfectly so that I need no longer fear God’s condemnation. I am left wondering if FV takes seriously the fall, and the disproportionate penalty for Adam’s merely eating an apple. The law demands perfection. Breaking the law demands death. As a descendant of Adam I am personally screwed without a savior who has paid he penalty for all of my sins and has given me righteousness that will allow me to ascend God’s holy hill.
I hate to make this about me. But Heidelberg 1 does make it about me. And, for instance, James’ notion of a cosmic gospel I find about as chilling and impersonal as Carl Sagan’s view of the cosmos. And the idea that God can adopt me and establish some kind of relationship with me apart from the magnitude of my sin and guilt remains a mystery.
So before I leave this discussion thread I would like to appeal to the FV’s pastoral side. You guys are not only pastors but have at times claimed that you are trying to be pastoral. If that is the case, I’d ask you to be very careful in the way you alter or re-express the doctrines of grace. This is not a game. These are not playful matters. The comfort of embodied souls is at stake. Until you can offer a doctrinal product that gives as much comfort to sinners as the old model, then please be very careful.
Anthony Cowley
October 5th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
It seems you read what I am saying as a dismissal of the IAOC. I am quite ready to be corrected if I am misunderstanding what is being said. I am not lacking in anything forensic. “My” Jesus is perfect, and his perfection is imputed to me. I just wonder about the direct imputation of his pre-cross righteousness. Can you address that categorical/historical biblical question, and straighten me out if I am fuzzying up categories? I affirm that Christ’s righteousness if imputed to those who have faith, and that by faith alone as the instrumental cause. What is uncler to me is the nature of the works/merit/righteouss and law fulfilling deeds of Jesus that need to be imputed to me to make me right with God. Presently, I see the Scriptures I’ve looked at emphasizing the Cross and Resurrection and Priestly ministry of Jesus - all forensic (and more). What does this miss? I’m not denying the necessity and reality of Christ fulfilling the law. I’m wondering if a direct imputation of his pre-cross righteousness is some how necessary, when we have the whole package imputed to us on the cross (our sins to him; his righteosness to us). Other than not using the words the same way, What am I missing? I write as an individual pastor, not a representative of the FV, though obviously influenced by many “FV” thinkers.
Thanks.
DWilson
October 5th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Darryl, I really am sympathetic to your concern here. Apart from the righteousness of Christ for me, I don’t have any hope either. And I do want to be pastoral about it. But I also want my parishioners to take refuge in Christ, and not just in the familiar.
I would urge you to be careful about phrases like “essential to the gospel.” That can have two meanings (at least). One is that without it, the gospel wouldn’t be the gospel. Without propitiation, to take an example we all agree on, the gospel wouldn’t work. But if we allow this to slop over into the other meaning, we have unnecessary controversies on our hands. A person can have deficient views of propitiation and still have Christ as his propitiary sacrifice. It is not essential to the gospel in that sense.
D Hart
October 5th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Anthony, you wrote, “If you live in a universe where law is all consuming and merit is your big issue, if you feel unworthy and condemned, yes, you can hash it through this way.” That sounds condescending and it also sounds like you don’t grasp how crucial the forensic is thanks to the original demands of God’s law, and the imputation of Adam’s sin.
Doug, I don’t know what you mean by taking refuge in the familiar. Is this a call for innovation, a constant urge to restate? I’m also willing to assert the IAOC as essential to the Reformed view. Sure, I understand that Reformed theologians and creeds didn’t put it exactly in those terms (none that I know put it in the terms of the Federal Vision Statement either). I also understand that we are saved by Christ and not by a proposition. But that hasn’t been what we’re discussing or debating. Theologians and church officers discuss and debate propositions all the time that are deemed essential for proving the truth of the gospel, that is, for giving a proper account of how Christ is a propitiary sacrifice. I find that some of your colleagues take issue with a certain phrasing. I’ve asked repeatedly for explanations why, especially ones that would enhance the sufficiency of Christ. I still haven’t heard anything close to answer that reassures me that FV has been misunderstood.
I don’t write this with glee. I am truly saddened by the confusion over justification that has plagued the Reformed world since Norman Shepherd began to tinker.
Anthony Cowley
October 6th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Okay. I am sorry for sounding condescending, and I can see why you see it that way. But, I am not missing the forensic. I’m asking about the nature of that which is imputed to us by grace through faith alone. We agree it is Christ’s righteousness.
Clearly, it is his righteousness in fulfilling the law that we need. But, is that not summed up in the Cross & Resurrection? Is not his obedience up to that point part of that discipline and fulfillment which is necessary?
Yes, the debate is about his “Active” vs. “Passive” obedience.
Was not his active obedience crowned in his saying “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done,” when he took the cup of suffering? The prayer in the garden, was it part of his active, or passive obedience?
And, obviously, if Jesus had not gone to the Cross, his active obedience to that point would have done us no good.
I’m trying to get at just what it is about the pre-cross obedience of Christ that get’s imputed, credited, and counted to us APART FROM, or without the ‘mediation’ of the Cross/Resurrection?
Again, when Jesus pleads for us before the Father, does he plead the sufficiency of his obedience as a faithful Jew, as a law-keeping, Covenant Keeping 2nd Adam, or does he put us under the Blood of the Cross?
Its a perspective issue. Can you clarify this? I’m not denying the forensic. I’m asking what about the Law fulfillment I’m missing if I see a unity to Christ’s life that tends against talking about the direct imputation of his pre-cross/resurrection righteousness. If he was vindicated, and if we are justified in his Resurrection, do we need some separate category of imputation?
Indulge me, please.
Thanks.
Anthony Cowley
October 7th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
As I keep coming back to I-AOC, I’m trying to read Dr. Hart sympathetically. I wish some other proponents of IAOC would chime in and answer some questions.
Going back over various posts, I found a text that I believe does two things:
1.) It provides part of the basis upon which some would found the I-AOC.
2.) It provides a basis for explaining just why the I-AOC formulation is a bit problematic, for it seems to miss the empasis of Scripture just where the Imputation doctrine is so important. In other words, when the Bible talks about fulfilling the Law (at least sometimes) it speaks in terms which lead away from an I-AOC construct towards an “in Christ” grid.
(3.) This text also provides fodder for a third consideration, which is one of the main problems with Theonomy. (This point is subsidiary, and much less clear to me, so if it confuses you, just skip point 3!) It was R.P. Pastor Scott Wilkinson that brought this point to my attention. In a written interaction he had with Andrew Sandlin and R.J. Rushdooney, Scott criticized Theonomy for treating the Law wrongly. I’m trying to remember the philosophical terminology with which he clarified his point. It had something to do with “de-ontological ethics.” I can’t remember how he expressed the problem (Andy, you still here?). One theological way of expressing this problem is that Theonomy tended to treat the Law as the anti-type and Christ as almost a type, rather than the type. In other words, Theonomy tends to confuses the shadow/type of the Law with the reality/anti-type of Jesus. In true perspective, Christ is the reality which casts the shadow of the Law (Vern Poythress based a whole book on this). When the real comes, the shadows flee away. As Scott saw it, Theonomy was making the (Mosaic) Law the reality. (Perhaps it is worth asking if some I-AOC advocates are doing the same thing with the Covenant of Works, and bringing in Merit to make the picture more clear.)
But, if Christ is the reality to which the shadows and types corresponded, then even the Covenant of Works with Adam was a picture of the reality of Christ. But, now to the text in which I see all these wonders:
Rom 7:4-6 “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.â€
1.) How does this give some comfort to the idea of the Imputation of the Active Obedience of Christ? It is to the Law that we die. From other Scriptures we know that Jesus fulfilled the Law. In order for us to be free from the condemnation of the Law, we need a Law-keeper, and his obedience to become our own. This fits with what Machen had to say. Others could flesh it out further.
2.) But, how might this text help us to see that the I-AOC formulation misses the emphasis of Scripture? Because the emphasis hers is upon Our Death to the Law of Sin and Death, certainly the Mosaic Law, but would this net also apply to the Covenant of Works? In the Westminster Confession the COW is seen as being re-published by means of the Mosaic law. (Is this not a major emphasis of those who sharply distinguish Law and Gospel?) Now, Note here that, of course, the Active Obedience of Christ is, in effect, ‘imputed’ to us, in that through his active obedience, His death could fulfill the Law’s penalty on our behalf. But, the continual focus of the Epistles is upon his Crucifixion as the basis of our justification, and not directly upon his law keeping. I note that “living in the flesh†and beng bound by “the old way of the written code†not only may apply to us / or to Paul in some pre-conversion way, but applies to Jesus living under the law (though as the immaculate second Adam - though the first Adam was immaculate until he sinned!). The passage speaks for itself, and note the emphases:
“Likewise, my brothers, you also HAVE DIED TO THE LAW through the body of Christ, so that YOU may BELONG to another, TO HIM WHO HAS BEEN RAISED from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But NOW WE ARE RELEASED FROM THE LAW, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.â€
Fulfillment? Yes. But, abrogation as well. In CHRIST we are dead to the Law. Were we under obligation to keep the law? Yes. Could we? No. But Christ did (thus far I-aoc). But, in so doing HE/we DIED to the Law and we are NO LONGER bound thereby.
So, in short, this both bolsters the case for IAOC, and puts it in relative shadow, emphasizing the NEW LIFE that is ours in the RISEN Lord.
Just some observations. Still would love some answers.
D Hart
October 8th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Anthony, no one is trying to break apart Christ’s obedience into distinct units, pre- and post-crucifixion, as if the doctrine of the Trinity breaks up the Godhead into three separater gods. ST makes distinctions to aid with clarification. I find, as has the tradition, that thinking about Christ’s obedience in two respects makes good sense of the Bible.
Obviously, some do not. You may or may not be included in that group. But before you press me more for an answer, I think it behooves you to show how your question does not imply that the Reformed tradition is sub-biblical.