right-with-god-march-april-2002 by Modern Reformation

THE JUSTIFICATION DEBATE ❘ THE NEW PERSPECTIVE ❘ NEUHAUS ON SOLUS CHRISTUS

MODERN REFORMATION

RIGHT WITH GOD: Why Justification Still Matters

VOLUME

11, NUMBER 2 , MARCH/APRIL 2002, $5.00

C M

N P

T 2

E |

N U

T 1

S B

RIGHT WITH GOD: WHY JUSTIFICATION STILL MATTERS

13 The Doctrine of Justification: The Article on which the Church Stands and Falls While some may think the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals harps on justification, biblical teaching shows why such an emphasis is actually balanced. by J.A.O. Preus

17 What’s All the Fuss About? The Status of the Justification Debate Appraising the current views of thought on justification, the author takes stock of harmful new interpretations that are gaining in popularity. by Michael Horton Plus: Understanding Luther and “Faith Alone”

24 A Reformed Critique of the New Perspective Recent interpreters of Paul claim to be new, but their theological agenda may turn out to be as old as views that the Apostle Paul and the Reformers condemned. by Richard Gaffin Plus: “Solution to Plight?” Get Real!

29 Justification and Sanctification Distinguished At the heart of the Reformation’s teaching on justification was a careful distinction between the objective and subjective aspects of the gospel that did not deny the importance of the believer’s holiness but actually provided the basis for genuinely good works. by Ken Jones

32 Finding True Peace with God COVER PHOTO BY PHOTODISC

The teaching of John Calvin on justification is filled with insight into how the gospel brings both objective and subjective peace with God. by W. Robert Godfrey Plus: Christ: The End of the Law

Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton

My Only Comfort

MODERN REFORMATION

Executive Editor D. G. Hart

hen the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals formed in 1996, among its early business was to issue the Cambridge Declaration (1996). This short document had two purposes. It identified the chief weaknesses of Evangelicalism

in the United States, and charted a course for theological renewal. Of the doctrines that shape the Alliance’s mission, justification is arguably the most important. As the Cambridge Declaration explains, “Justification…by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone…is the article by which the church stands or falls.” As such, it is the kind of doctrine that prompts criticism of those who betray it such as when, according to the Cambridge Declaration, it appears to be “ignored, distorted, or sometimes even denied by leaders, scholars and pastors who claim to be evangelical.” It is also a doctrine that calls for restatement and explanation such as the Cambridge Declaration’s affirmation that in justification “Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us as the only possible satisfaction of God’s perfect justice.” The result of this imputation is that believers are declared righteous and, therefore, innocent of ever having committed a sin. Again, as the Cambridge Declaration explains, the believers’ perfection does not rest “on any merit to be found” in them but only on the perfect righteousness of Christ received by faith alone. Because this affirmation of justification by grace alone through faith alone involves both the good news of the gospel and the bad news of departures from its truth, the task of explaining and defending justification may come across as proud and combative. In fact, since the sixteenth century, when debates over this doctrine led to the division between Catholics and Protestants, the insistence upon justification as a basis for fellowship has fostered a zeal for the truth of the Reformation that has at times obscured what is at stake. The issue of justification is ultimately not about which Protestants are more faithful heirs of Martin Luther or John Calvin. Nor is it a Next Issue club with which to Hell: Putting the beat Roman Catholics. Fire Out The issue is not

2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

about who is right; it is about who is righteous. In Psalm 24 King David asks, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?” The immediate answer is one that puts the discussion of justification in a sobering perspective: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, and who does not lift up his soul to what is false, and does not swear deceitfully.” In other words, only the righteous may stand in God’s presence, whether now when saints gather for worship or in the new heaven and new earth. And for those people who know themselves to be sinners, both before and after professing faith in Christ, the doctrine of justification is wonderful comfort for it teaches that we may stand confidently in God’s presence on the basis of Christ’s righteousness which is credited to us and received by faith. On the basis of Christ’s perfect obedience and sacrificial death, we need not fear Psalm 24’s relentless demands. Instead, because justification is true, we have assurance that in God’s sight our hands are really clean and our hearts really pure because we have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness. This truth may explain why the Heidelberg Catechism begins with a question about the Christian’s only comfort. “That I with body and soul,” the catechism reads, “both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.” And the foundation of this comfort is closely linked to justification because of the believer’s assurance that “with his precious blood” Christ “has fully satisfied for all my sins.” If it sometimes seems as if Modern Reformation is obsessed with justification, it is not because of a desire to win points in a theological debate. Instead, it reflects a concern to provide genuine comfort to sinners in need of a savior.

Managing Editor Eric Landry Alliance Council Gerald Bray ❘ D. A. Carson Mark E. Dever ❘ J. Ligon Duncan, III W. Robert Godfrey ❘ John D. Hannah Michael Horton ❘ Rosemary Jensen Ken Jones ❘ John Nunes J. A. O. Preus ❘ Rod Rosenbladt Philip Ryken ❘ R. C. Sproul ❘ Mark R. Talbot Gene E. Veith, Jr. ❘ Paul F. M. Zahl Department Editors Lisa Davis, Open Exchange Brian Lee, Ex Auditu Benjamin Sasse, Between the Times Mark R. Talbot, Reviews Staff ❘ Editors Ann Henderson Hart, Assistant Editor Diana S. Frazier, Contributing Editor Alyson S. Platt, Copy Editor Lori A. Cook, Layout and Design Celeste McGhee, Proofreader Brandon Edmonds, Production Assistant Contributing Scholars Charles P. Arand ❘ S. M. Baugh Jonathan Chao ❘ William M. Cwirla Marva J. Dawn ❘ Don Eberly Timothy George ❘ Douglas S. Groothuis Allen C. Guelzo ❘ Carl F. H. Henry Lee Irons ❘ Arthur A. Just Robert Kolb ❘ Donald Matzat Timothy M. Monsma ❘ John W. Montgomery John Muether ❘ Kenneth A. Myers Tom J. Nettles ❘ Leonard R. Payton Lawrence R. Rast ❘ Kim Riddlebarger Rick Ritchie ❘ David P. Scaer Rachel S. Stahle ❘ David VanDrunen Cornelis Van Dam ❘ David F. Wells Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals © 2002 All rights reserved. The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals exists to call the church, amidst our dying culture, to repent of its worldliness, to recover and confess the truth of God’s Word as did the Reformers, and to see that truth embodied in doctrine, worship and life. For more information, call or write us at: Modern Reformation 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 546-3696 ModRef@AllianceNet.org www.modernreformation.org ISSN-1076-7169

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION

D. G. Hart Executive Editor

US US Student Canada Europe Other

1 YR $22 1 YR $15 1 YR $25 1 YR $40 1 YR $45

2 YR $40 2 YR $45 2 YR $75 2 YR $85

As usual, the latest issue of Modern Reformation contained some wonderful articles…. The magazine has proven to be an excellent resource for spiritual growth in our lives over these last few years that we have received it. We would like to express one concern that we have, however. We wonder if it was really necessary to include the pictures found on pages 12 and 22 showing a scantily-clad couple in what seems to be designed to portray the before and after images of sexual intimacy? The photographs in this issue remind us of the one from several years ago which portrayed the naked man on the cover (one for which we know you received some criticism at the time)…. What makes Modern Reformation such a wonderful resource in the first place is that in boldly proclaiming the truth you have never shied away from confronting the sinfulness of our dying and perverse culture. Using images such as these only serves to blur the line between your message and that of the world. We love your magazine and hope you will accept these comments in the spirit in which they are given (Prov. 27:5). Bryan & Meredith Holstrom St. Charles, IL Editor’s Response: After reactions to the cover of Naked and Ashamed: Does Anyone Feel Guilty Anymore? (MR, Nov./Dec. 1997), we did try to choose images for the issue on Sex in the Christian Life (Nov./Dec. 2001) that would be unobjectionable. We are sorry we failed some readers and promise to take your comments to heart the next time we consider using images of people who are not fully clothed.

I read in your Nov./Dec. 2001 edition that Dr. Lewis Smedes is quoted from his book Sex for Christians on page 9. And then on page 24 you encourage purchasing his book, which can only mean the revised edition that came out in the 1990’s. I would like to quote from his book as he is quoted by the Christian Reformed Church: I still believe that God prefers homosexual people to live in committed and faithful monogamous relationships with each other when they cannot change their condition and do not have the gift to be celibate. My mind has not changed in any basic way since I set these opinions to paper nearly two decades ago. I must assume that you were unaware of his position when you quoted him and recommended his book…. Should you not see fit to correct your mistake I would wonder at the reformation we are seeking to bring…. I will be looking for a correction. Zachary Anderson, Goshen, NY Editor’s Response: We regret to have given the impression, both by quoting Lewis Smedes and then recommending his book, that we endorse everything he has written in Sex for Christians. His understanding of homo-sexuality and its legitimacy under certain conditions is not one that we either endorse or recommend. In fact, we agree with Mr. Anderson that this view is contrary to Scripture and the historic teachings of the Reformed churches. Readers of MR should always read carefully the books we recommend because even though useful, some may not be correct in all matters.

Join the Conversation! Modern Reformation Letters to the Editor 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 215.735.5133 fax ModRef@AllianceNet.org Letters under 200 words are more likely to be printed than longer letters.

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 3

E A

N F

E F

X R

C E

H R

A E

N O

by Ralph W. Hahn

Cool Cartoons and Funky Designs: The Marketing of Jabez

hose who think that “Jabezmania” (prompted by the bestselling The Prayer of Jabez by Bruce H. Wilkinson, reviewed in the November/December 2001 issue of Modern Reformation) is anything less than a monstrous scam should consider a recent catalog from Christian Book Distributors. Just inside the front cover we find the following souvenirs, among

Interested in contributing to Open Exchange? Send your name, address, and essay topic to: Open Exchange c/o Modern Reformation Magazine 1716 Spruce Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 or contact us by e-mail at OpenExchange @AllianceNet.org

others, offered for sale to the true believers among us: 1. The Prayer of Jabez 2002 Desk Calendar, $6.99. “Bringing the life-changing words of Jabez to your home or office.” 2. Jabez Desktop Scripture Keeper, $7.99. “Begin your day by asking God’s blessing on all you do.” 3. Jabez Devotional, $8.49. “… will help you discover God’s extravagant best for you. Thirtyone daily readings, inspiring quotes and practical suggestions will open your eyes to what God can accomplish through you.” 4. The Prayer of Jabez for Teens, $7.49. “…has changed millions of lives, now available just for Generation Y. Shows how Jabez’s prayer can help teens discover God’s plan for their lives.” 5. The Prayer of Jabez for Kids, $7.49. “Show your kids how one small prayer can accomplish BIG things for God! Cool cartoons and funky designs encourage youngsters to boldly ask God for his blessing.” 6. The Prayer of Jabez for Little Ones, $4.99. “For ages 2 to 5.” The title of this particular CBD catalog is “Abundant Living: Essentials for the Heart and Home.” Predictably, the required Bible verse on the front cover validates the claims made for the merchandise inside: “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” And these magic charms will all wind up at the garage sale down the street, along with the VeggieTales neckties, WWJD bracelets, and Bibleman videos that animated us before Jabez arrived. Like wildfires, these fads sweep through

4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

Christian communities in successive waves of excited enthusiasm, much like the Left Behind novels, which advocate such an uncertain eschatology. Now perhaps Wilkinson will use the profits to expand his ministry, but meanwhile, thousands of naïve and trusting Christians will spend millions of dollars, which many of them can ill afford. Whether there is quid pro quo here is problematic, but where else can they “discover God’s extravagant best” for them (whatever that means), or find out “God’s plan for their lives”? Apparently the Bible is no longer useful for this purpose. The claims made for these books and “art objects” are outrageous and shameless hype. Is our faith so shallow that it must be propped up with stories and trinkets that insult our intelligence? Must we now contend with entrepreneurs inside the church, as well as in the world? Why do we insist on cheapening our faith, spending money for that which is not bread? What price “abundant living”? Ah, but where else can we get “cool cartoons and funky designs”? We should not be surprised. After all, Christian booksellers are not required to be Christians. They are just required to sell books. The success of Jabez may be due more to a clever and unrelenting sales campaign than to any spiritual value it may have. May God forgive us. Ralph W. Hahn is retired after a varied career that included jobs as psychology instructor, college administrator, and inspector for Boeing. He lives in southern Idaho.

E E

X X

A O

U H

D -

I T

T D

U M

Galatians 2:15–5:1

What the Good News Is: Faith

o you think that you could explain the basic message of Christianity if someone

The Galatians thought they had accepted Christ. asked you to do so? What would you tell them? “Well, it has a lot to do with But evidently this other teaching didn’t accept the reading your Bible … coming to church … leading a moral life.” idea that salvation came through Christ alone, by faith In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we see that he alone in him. They may understands the basic message of Christianity very have thought they accepted clearly, and he articulates it to these Galatians. the idea that it was by faith in From Paul understands each Christian church as a sort of Christ that these blessings MARK DEVER broadcast station, left to broadcast this particular came, but they had certainly message—simply, accurately, straightforwardly. not understood that it is by faith Christianity is not merely a way of life. It has at its alone and not by observing center and core news, news of God’s great love for the Law. And it is that which Capitol Hill us in Christ. Christians, thus, have a message that is really the heart of the Baptist Church is clear, that can be understood and communicated problem we are looking at Washington D.C. this morning. to others. This clear message was being obscured in Paul introduces the the Galatian church Paul had founded, and this problem to us nicely by the epistle is his response to that crisis. questioning in which he engages in 3:1–5: The Heart of Galatians You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched In Galatians 2:15–5:1, Paul is making one long you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was argument about the same thing. In this letter, as he publicly portrayed as crucified? This is the focuses on the very heart of the gospel, it’s not all only thing I want to find out from you: did about the cross and the substitutionary death of you receive the Spirit by the works of the Christ. It is certainly there. He certainly believes Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so that, as is clear in Chapter 1 and again in 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law.” foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you The idea of substitution doesn’t get much clearer now being perfected by the flesh? Did you than that. suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it But that’s not quite what Paul is focusing on was in vain? Does he then, who provides here. It may well be that the false teachers that had you with the Spirit and works miracles come into these Galatian churches didn’t openly among you, do it by the works of the Law, or dispute that part of the Christian gospel. Their by hearing with faith?” dispute was with the means of apprehending the good things that Christ has won for us. How do we If you asked these people how they had come to have a part of these good things, the received the Spirit, been justified before God, benefits of his death? How are you forgiven of declared innocent, been freed from the penalty of your sins? How are you freed from sin’s penalty sin, and even now were being saved from the and power? How are you adopted into God’s power of sin as God had included them in his family? family—if you asked these Christians how all of

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 5

these wonderful things had happened, you would find that there was some confusion arising among them. Some were saying that all of this happened because they had faithfully observed the Law; others knew that these things had happened simply because they had believed the gospel of Christ that they had heard preached. Who can say which was really the cause? It’s all an invisible transaction, isn’t it? How can you tie it down so neatly? True, Paul had taught that faith in Christ was the way, but now these other teachers—who were coming as Christians, claiming to be speaking as those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah—were saying that observing the Law was also necessary, if not enough in itself. That teaching perhaps sounded a little strange at first in some of these young churches. It wasn’t exactly what Paul had taught them . . . or was it? Paul didn’t disparage the Old Testament, certainly. These teachers claimed to accept Jesus, the same of which Paul spoke. Soon their teaching may have sounded more plausible, proffered as it was by apparently pious, law-abiding believers. Yet through their words, these teachers brought into question the very gospel itself. Christ had died for our sins—they were not questioning that. They weren’t crude self-salvationists, they weren’t saying, “We save ourselves from our sins by working.” But the point they were making is that we apprehend Christ and his benefits. How? We gained these hard-won benefits of Christ’s death. How? By believing? Simply by believing? Really?

which showed that they should have understood the futility of trying to gain salvation by obeying the Law. So, rather than simply arguing with them, Paul asks them a question that will send them back to an indisputable truth, a truth they had experienced: “Did you receive the Spirit by observing the Law, or by believing what you heard?” He gave them two alternatives. Snap out of this! I don’t know what kind of theological fog they have you in, but let me just remind you, look back on your own life and experience. Did you become a Christian because your life started becoming so obedient, or because you believed the message that you heard? That was his basic response to the Galatian questions, throughout this letter. How are we justified, declared righteous, forgiven? How are we freed from sin’s grip, from its penalty and power, its grim wages and its just punishment? This is the question that is at the heart of Galatians, and in that sense Galatians has one basic message, and it is the heart of Christianity.

How Are We Forgiven for Our Sins? The key word Paul uses is justified, a legal term that means to be declared not guilty when you’re standing in a court of law. Granted that we sin, how is it we could ever be declared righteous—not guilty—by our ever-just judge? Paul is certainly clear in the opening verses of our passage how we do not do it: “We are Jews by nature, and not sinners from among the Gentiles; nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the id you become a Christian because your life started becoming so obedient, or Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have because you believed the message that you heard? believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the Just believing? Doesn’t that sound like “easy works of the Law; since by the works of the Law believism”? What about our lives? Do we really shall no flesh be justified.” want to say that it is merely belief that is the means Even those who are born Jews know that we of obtaining the benefits that Christ has won for cannot be justified by observing the Law. He says us? Or, now that we think of it, could it be that in 2:16, and again in 2:21, “If righteousness repentance, the changing of our lives by adapting could be gained through the Law, I am setting aside them to God’s revealed will? the grace of God. If righteousness could be gained Does this sound plausible to you? Whatever through the Law, Christ died for nothing.” These questions you may have, Paul had no doubt. He false teachers may not have intended all that, but calls the Galatians foolish. The Galatians were in nevertheless that’s what their position entailed. great danger! Paul had preached clearly to them of These are the radical implications for God’s grace, what Christ had accomplished, but now they and especially for Christ’s death. If you start seemed to be forgetting exactly what it was, or believing that you are saved because of how you maybe they were misunderstanding it. Paul had live, then Christ died for nothing. preached of the crucifixion of Christ among them; Paul is saying in the letter to the Galatians that they had presumably taken the Lord’s Supper; they the Law was never really meant as a means of had comprehended his substitutionary death— salvation or justification. I hope you see how

6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

important this is. John Calvin called this “the hinge of the Reformation.” Martin Luther famously said, “Justification by faith alone is the article by which the Church stands or falls.” We need to understand how it is that on that last day we can be approved in God’s sight as free from the guilt of sin and the punishment that we deserve because of it, and as having that righteousness that entitles us to the reward of life. If we’re looking for salvation, we will not find it by observing the Law. That’s why Paul says, “For through the Law I died to the Law so that I might live for God.” The Law had exhausted Paul’s own moral resources. By his attempts to find justification through it he realized he could never do it, and so in that sense he died to the Law. Now that doesn’t mean the Law has no use. Paul often quotes the Law about instructing Christians on godly living, but that’s an entirely different matter than how one is finally saved, or made right with God. Here, Paul is clear. He knows that if anyone seeks justification with God by how he/she lives, he or she is bound to fail. The fruit produced by striving to obey the Law is not acceptance with God. Paul is very explicit about this in 3:10 and following, where he mines the Old Testament for quotations in support. Paul’s gospel is not opposed to the Hebrew scriptures, as the false teachers may have suggested, but is precisely based upon a proper understanding of them: “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law, to perform them’” (Deut. 27:26). Clearly no one is justified by the Law because “the righteous man shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4). The Law is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them” (Lev. 18:5). Well then, we’re all cursed. Exactly! Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Deut. 21:23). The very thing that many of the Jews of Paul’s day said was the proof that Jesus could not be the Messiah—because he was cursed. Paul is saying, “Exactly. “ This is exactly how you know what God was doing in him. He became cursed, you’re right, according to the deliberate plan of God. He who deserved no curse stood in the place of those who deserved the curse for their sins. “He redeemed us in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit”(3:14). So observing the Law, far from blessing us, ends

up cursing us, because, as we learn in Deuteronomy, the Law obligates us to do everything in it. Any failure at all sinks us. If you set out to sail to the Port of Salvation on the ship of the Law, one hole will send you to the bottom of the ocean. The Law, as Leviticus reminds us, is built on our obedience. Given our disobedience, it simply calls down God’s righteous curse on us. Then what is the answer? We are justified not by observing the Law, but by faith in Christ (2:16, 20). Paul returns to the object of our faith—Christ and what he has done for us. Christ is central; he is essential to what Paul is saying. Paul isn’t teaching that our faith itself is the ground of our justification, the basis or reason for it; rather, the work of Christ alone is its foundation. God doesn’t accept us because we have faith in faith. No, our faith is faith in Christ, and it is because of Christ that God accepts us. Faith in Christ alone is the instrument by which we receive our justification. Friend, it is not the belief in justification by faith alone that will save you, but rather it is the trusting, the having faith in Christ alone, by which God graciously unites us to Christ, to his suffering, death, and resurrection, and thereby justifies us. Abraham’s Justification Paul presents a great example of justification by faith, and it’s very interesting whom he selects. In a profound understanding of the Old Testament, Paul produces the man his opponents call the head of the circumcision party—Abraham himself—as his own chief witness. When you go back into Genesis, you find that God justified Abraham— accounted him righteous—before he was circumcised, simply because he believed God’s words. And that belief, we read, “God credited to him as righteousness.” “Consider Abraham. ‘He believed God, and it [belief] was credited to him as righteousness.’ Understand then that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (Gal. 3:6–9). Abraham’s faith was not simply wishful thinking, but rather, taking God at his word. That’s what Abraham did. This is why Paul can say in Romans 10, “Faith comes through hearing the message” (v. 17). Faith focuses us on God and on his Word. It holds it out to us, and calls us to believe, to trust in him and what he said. Faith is made up of trust and assent: We think that something is true and we act on it. And we think

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 7

it is true not because we can prove it, but because we believe the one who has promised it. Faith isn’t arbitrary. It’s not as though God might have chosen some other coin of the religious realm. Maybe I’ll make it chastity Maybe the righteous should live by mercy. Maybe punctuality will be how you apprehend Christ and his benefits. Faith is exactly what Adam and Eve didn’t do in the garden. Their relationship with God was severed because they would not believe what God said. Abraham is singled out because, by God’s grace, he believed what he was told by God, even though it was seemingly absurd. He believed that he and his ninety-year-old wife would have a child, even though they had never been able to conceive. Because God promised it, and because he knew who was making the promise, he believed it. And because of that faith, God credited it as righteousness. That’s how God brings us back into relationship with himself. I wonder how you set out to be forgiven? Martin Luther said, “It’s the purpose of all Scripture to tear us away from our works and bring us to faith” (Works 30:18). Because in bringing us to faith, Scripture is bringing us to Christ. This is how to be justified. This is how to be forgiven. Conclusion Well, this is Paul’s answer to the Galatians’ confusion over the gospel. How are they going to choose between teachers, between Paul and the others? Simple. Who has this message, this message of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone? Christianity has a clear message, and it can be recognized. It was this message that Paul preached to the Galatians, that the false teachers were contradicting, and that Paul urged them to recover. Maybe you think that words aren’t really all that important. Why fight and quibble over all these words? Paul says, “I’d like to learn just one thing from you, did you receive the Spirit by observing the Law, or believing what you heard?” (3:2). If you have received the Holy Spirit of God, if he dwells in you, it is in no small part because of words, because you heard the message, because you heard the truth about God in Jesus Christ. Not by sacraments, not by special emotional outpourings, not by simply entering into Christian experience. Certainly, the gospel once understood must be believed, and if it is really believed, it will be obeyed. But that’s not what Paul is talking about here. He is talking here about how we are accepted with God, and only saving faith saves. There is no saving obedience that you and I can perform. Faith isn’t opposed to obedience—I

8 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

wouldn’t want to leave you with that thought. Faith really helps obedience, when you grasp ahold of this. We can know this from this letter to the Galatians: Anybody who is resting on his own righteousness for salvation will most certainly be damned. There is no hope for anyone resting on his own righteousness. That’s why Paul warns them, and that’s why Paul points to this wonderful news that he had preached to them before, and that he preached to them again here in this letter, and that I’m telling you this morning. God has made a way for us to be saved, and it’s not based on our own righteousness, and it’s not based on our own obedience, but it is all of Christ’s righteousness, of his obedience, being accounted to us by faith.

Mark Dever (Ph.D., Cambridge University) is senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. A member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Dr. Dever’s most recent book is Nine Marks of a Healthy Church (Crossway, 2000).

PCUSA Correction and Update The “Between the Times” column in the Jan/Feb issue of MR inaccurately recorded the majority position of mainline Presbyterians on the question of whether sexually active homosexuals should be ordained to the ministry. The statistic in question should have stated that 74% of laity and 65% of clergy oppose gay ordination. We apologize for this error. By way of update: this popular judgment appears to be carrying the day in current voting at the presbytery level. Last summer, the PCUSA General Assembly voted 317 to 208 to delete the denomination’s “fidelity and chastity” ordination standard, which prohibits the ordination of sexually active homosexuals. To become church law, this revision would need to be approved by a majority of the PCUSA’s 173 presbyteries. At the last count available as this issue of MR went to press, presbytery voting stood 57 to 23 in favor of retaining the prohibition against gay ordination.

Speaking of... B

ut can it really be true – saint and sinner

simultaneously? I wish it were so…. Is this correct: “I don’t need to work at becoming. I’m already declared to be holy?” No sweat needed? It looks wrong to me. I hear moral demands in Scripture…. But simul iustus et peccator? I hope it’s true! I simply fear it’s not. Russel Spittler, Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification, 43

here is, perhaps, no passage in the whole Scripture which illustrates in a more striking manner the efficacy of his righteousness; for it shows that God’s mercy is the efficient cause, that Christ with his blood is the meritorious cause, that the formal or the instrumental cause is faith in the Word, and that moreover, the final cause is the glory of the divine justice and goodness. With regard to the efficient cause, he says, that we are justified freely, and further, by his grace; and he thus repeats the word to show that the whole is from God, and nothing from us. John Calvin, Commentary on Romans, 3:24

s has been already said, there can be no justification in a legal or forensic sense, but upon the ground of universal, perfect and uninterrupted obedience to law…. The doctrine of an imputed righteousness, or that Christ’s obedience to the law was accounted as our obedience, is founded on a most false and nonsensical assumption…. The doctrine of an imputed righteousness is a different gospel. Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology, pp. 320-21

et us always beware of any teaching which either directly or indirectly obscures justification by faith. All religious systems which put anything between the heavy-laden sinner and Jesus Christ the Saviour, except simple faith, are dangerous and unscriptural. All systems which make out faith to be anything complicated, anything but a simple, childlike dependence, — the hand which receives the soul’s medicine from the physician, — are unsafe and poisonous systems. J.C. Ryle, Knots Untied, 299

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 9

Additionally, should believers participate in generic civic prayers? If so, whose God is being prayed to? Is it ever permissible to invite Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and members of other false religions to pray with us? Should prayer be understood (as mainline Protestants often argue) as a means to experiential unity, or is prayer chiefly a consequence and expression of confessional unity? Many denominations are now struggling with these complicated questions of how Christians should mourn with the civic community, and yet simultaneously confess that hope amidst suffering is found exclusively in Jesus Christ. Standing alone among the country’s large denominations, the 15 million member Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has a policy against all participation in interfaith prayers and worship services. Southern Baptists pray neither with non-Christian bodies, nor

12 SUM + of the = TIME

Percentage

evangelicals who

actually tithe, according to

research by George Barna— compared to the greater

than 30% who claim to tithe.

1 0 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

ASSOCIATED PRESS, AP, BETH A. KEISER

When Prayer Compromises Christian Witness n the months since September 11, many Christians have rightly pointed out that God uses suffering as a megaphone to teach that all is not well with this world. It is fallen, and we are wise to receive hardship and disaster as occasions to repent of our tendency to live as if this age is all that exists. Furthermore, in God’s plan, horrific events such as these attacks may play a role in some people coming to faith in Jesus Christ. For this outcome, all Christians obviously rejoice. But what should we make of the more general religiosity that results from catastrophe? To listen to most evangelical commentators, it would appear that nebulous displays of public religion—such as the singing of “God Bless America” by non-Christian members of Congress—are unmixed goods. But is that so?

Gov. George Pataki, left, hugs Oprah Winfrey, center, as New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY look on, right after addressing the crowd Sunday, Sept. 23, 2001 at Yankee Stadium in New York. A city prayer service was held to remember all those who died on the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks on the Work Trade Center.

with Christian denominations they consider illegitimate, such as Mormons and Catholics. Though mainline Protestants have accused the SBC of sectarianism, the policy has successfully kept Baptist clergy from confusing Americans by implying that Baptists believe all faiths are equally true, says Rev. Dwayne Mercer, president of Florida’s one million member Baptist Convention. Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, echoes this sentiment, arguing that orthodox Protestants may debate theology or join in political causes such as the anti-abortion movement with heterodox religionists, but may never worship or pray with them. Some clergy in the 2.6 million member Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) are now wishing

that the LCMS had had such a clear policy in place prior to Osama bin Laden’s rise to infamy. For on September 23, LCMS Atlantic District President David Benke participated in the nationally televised “A Prayer for America” at Yankee Stadium. Benke argues that the event—hosted by Oprah Winfrey and James Earl Jones, and which included clergy from various nonChristian religions—was merely a civic rather than an actual religious event, and thus that his participation did not violate the Lutheran confessions or church order. He further notes that he prayed explicitly “in Jesus’ name,” as is required by the LCMS guidelines for clergy at extra-ecclesial assemblies. Many critics are unpersuaded, insisting that Benke is guilty of syncretism and of compromising the

Christian faith. The denomination is currently considering the formal charges which have been brought against him. (Related charges also have been leveled against Synod President Gerald Kieschnick for his support of Benke, and for his participation in another September New York City prayer service, but there are denominational constitutional questions about where charges against the Synod president should be filed.) In the official letter of complaint against Rev. Benke, the plaintiffs write: “An expression of civic unity and neighborly care is

ÍTapes are available from “A Common Heritage,” the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals’ AfricanAmerican Pastors Conference, held last fall at Glendale Baptist Church in Miami. According to Rev. Anthony Carter, one of the organizers, it was “an invigorating time of renewal and reassurance that the sovereign God has not abdicated his throne. And that whether yellow, black, or white, all in Christ have a common heritage.” Available addresses include: Carter on the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints”; John Nunes on why preaching—even to Christians—can never confuse Law and Gospel, because we are simultaneously saints and sinners; Ken Jones on the sufficiency of Christ alone

laudable in times of national crisis, but an expression of syncretism is never appropriate—and all the more so when the majority of participants of an interfaith service presume to approach the mercy seat of God in prayer with a righteousness which is not of Christ.” The charges begin a process that could lead to termination of Benke’s membership in the LCMS. In 1998, Benke participated in a similar interfaith event at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, for which he subsequently acknowledged his error and issued a formal apology to the denomi-

and the dangers of the Third Wave Movement; Carl Ellis on the development of the AfricanAmerican Christian experience; and Elliot Greene asserting that exposition need not be emotionless and emotion need not be void of exposition. For further information, visit AllianceNet.org. ÍThe Washington Times reported in January that the Christian Coalition has agreed to pay over $300,000 to black employees claiming that they—unlike white workers—were forced to enter only through back doors at the organization’s Washington, DC headquarters. The black employees were also allegedly prohibited from eating in the lunchroom used by white employees,

nation. He claims that this case differs from the former service, though, in that the 2001 event was merely cultural. Kieschnick concurs, noting that LCMS ministers are barred from participating in joint church services, but that they may use their judgment about civic events such as graduations and inaugurations. “I have a clear picture in my mind of what a congregation looks like, and it’s not Yankee Stadium.” Nevertheless, other Lutherans are prudently asking: Regardless of whether an event is officially labeled a “worship service” or not, doesn’t the act of Christians

and from participating in staff prayer meetings. The settlement came just weeks after another public relations disaster shook the organization. A December GQ expose article revealed that the Coalition’s president Pat Robertson (who has since retired from the Christian Coalition, although not from his broadcasting empire) has entered into a multi-million dollar African gold mining deal with the notoriously murderous Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. ÍAs this issue of MR goes to press, senior officials at the U.S. Departments of Defense and State are beginning to talk about the next phase of the war against terrorism. The identification of Muslim terrorist groups in Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, and the

praying with non-Christians actually communicate to the unbelievers that we believe we are all praying to the same God? As the LCMS Wyoming District Pastors Conference has unanimously written to the denomination in this matter: “How do we ‘witness’ through prayer to those whom we should first lead to repentance before praying with them? Can they pray with us if they do not believe in Jesus Christ, as we only have access to the Father through Him? Further, if we ask them to pray with us, when they cannot, are we giving them false comfort and assurance?”

Philippines as potential targets is both encouraging and frightening to supporters of religious freedom. These four countries have witnessed unprecedented (though underreported) attacks on Christian villages in recent months. In the Sulawesi and Maluku regions of Indonesia alone, for example, news agencies report that approximately 9,000 people have been murdered—well over twice as many victims as in the World Trade Center bombings. Relief experts in these countries debate whether an international campaign against organizations such as Indonesia’s Laskar Jihad and the Philippine’s Moro Islamic Liberation Front will be able to stem the escalating violence against Christians in rural villages.

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1 1

RIGHT WITH GOD | Why Justification Still Matters

The Doctrine of

Justification: The Article on which the Church Stands and Falls hat’s the big deal?” I hear that a lot as a Council member of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Why are we harping so much on the doctrine of justification? What’s at stake and why are we so nitpicky about it? Well, good question. Of course, we are not the first to “harp” on this doctrine. We think of ourselves as following in the footsteps of Luther and Calvin and the other great reformers of the sixteenth century in focusing on what counts most. That’s why we talk so much about Reformation theology. According to the reformers, the gospel of God’s free grace for sinners on account of Christ is central to our faith. We’re simply trying once again to restore that to the preeminent place, where it belongs. We also criticize the state of contemporary Evangelicalism. The reason for our concern is that we’re convinced the reformers were right when they put the gospel at the center of their theological thinking. This understanding should be clear especially among people who call themselves evangelicals. You see, the Greek word for “gospel” is euangelion, from which we get our English word “evangelical.” Properly speaking, to be evangelical means to be gospel-centered. Yet, much of contemporary Evangelicalism has been untrue to its name by supplanting the gospel-centered

“W

BY J. A. O. PREUS

character of Reformation theology with a mancentered focus, such as our response of love or our obedience or the like. This is what has caused us to be so vociferous in our harping. Let’s take a look at some of the rich truths of the Reformed faith.

not even for one hour. It is the substance of the faith, the substratum, and the foundation upon which theology, the Church, and faith stand. So, it not only tells us where the Church is, but it is also the very substance of the faith, which nourishes and sustains faith and keeps the Church in exisThe Gospel and the Doctrine of Justification tence. he classical Reformed and Lutheran tradiThe Reformation leaders of the sixteenth and tions have maintained that the doctrine of seventeenth centuries used to speak of this doctrine justification is the articulus stantis et cadentis as the “cardinal article” of the Christian faith. This ecclesiae, the article upon which the Church stands comes from the Latin word cardo, which means and falls. What we’re really saying is that the hinge. The idea here is that the doctrine of justifigospel, that is the good news that God justifies sin- cation is like the linchpin upon which the entirety ners by grace, through faith on account of Christ, of Christian doctrine hangs, or around which it is the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae. So, in the revolves. This word was used to speak of the minds of the reformers, the doctrine of justification earth’s axis, or as a chief fact upon which other facts is synonymous with the gospel. Now, when they depend. Without the hinge, the door falls. It loses its proper axis. Without the foundation, the Church sim[The gospel] not only tells us where the Church is, but it is also the very substance ply falls apart. It’s very simple: Without the doctrine of of the faith, which nourishes and sustains faith and keeps the Church justification you lose everything. in existence. So, where do we find out about this chief doctrine? The reformers insisted that spoke that way they intended to affirm the the only proper source and norm for theology was absolute necessity, for the Church’s continuing Holy Scripture. In fact, they were so adamant that existence, of the message of the gospel. The mes- only the Bible be used as the source material for sage that sinners are justified before God by grace, theology and practice that they used the phrase for Christ’s sake, through faith alone, apart from “Scripture alone” (sola scriptura). Deciding what will works of the law is absolutely necessary for the be our cardinal article of faith is not something that Church to be the Church. we choose. Instead, the Bible tells us what it is. According to the reformers, this gospel (or the The reformers believed that the purpose of doctrine of justification) stands over the Church as Scripture was to tell us of God’s gracious and miracthe criterion of the Church’s authenticity. It is the ulous provision for the salvation of lost and sinful judge of what is truly the Church and what is not. humanity in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is the presence of this gospel, in its verbal or vis- His suffering, death, and resurrection form the ible (i.e., Word and Sacraments) forms that identi- heart of the scriptural teaching. Jesus himself fies the Church of Jesus Christ and distinguishes it affirmed this when he said, “You diligently study from every other organization or sect. Where this the Scriptures because you think that by them you gospel is, there you have the Church. Where you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that do not have evidence of this gospel, you do not testify about me” (John 5:39). have visible, and therefore trustworthy, evidence of the Church. It is true that only God can see into The Justification of Sinners: the heart to determine if a person has faith. God The Divine Solution to the Human Problem ow that we’ve seen that the doctrine of can discern the true Church in its inner (or invisijustification is crucial, let’s take a closer ble) sense. But we cannot see into the heart. We look at it to see its essential components. are limited to what we can see. We can see and hear the gospel. So, the gospel, or the doctrine of The Apostle Paul does a very helpful job of identijustification, becomes the only visible or audible fying these elements in his masterful summary of the doctrine of justification in Romans 3:21–24: indicator of the existence of the Church. However, the gospel not only serves as an infal- “But now a righteousness [or justification] from lible mark of the Church, it also stands under the God, apart from law, has been made known, to Church as its only firm foundation. Luther said which the Law and the Prophets testify. This rightthat without this gospel the Church cannot stand, eousness [or justification] from God comes

1 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” In the passage, Paul identifies four integral parts to the doctrine of justification. One is justified before God: 1. Apart from Law 2. Freely by his grace 3. Through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus 4. Through faith. Here, then, is a good working definition of the doctrine of justification (or the gospel) according to Romans 3: We are justified (or saved) apart from our own merits, by grace, on account of Christ, through faith. As we seek a clearer definition of the gospel, it may be helpful to clarify what this gospel stands against. In other words, we can discern its meaning by coming to grips with what it opposes. If the gospel can be viewed as the solution to the problem of the Law, then we must understand the Law ultimately as a concern coram Deo, that is, before God (see Rom. 3:19–20). The gospel is only the good news that Scripture says it is if it comes as the solution to the problem of God, his wrath, his condemnation, his estrangement from us because of our sin. In a sense, the real human predicament is the God who judges; the God in the light of whose law we stand accused, or in the light of whose life we are dead, or in the light of whose perfection we are defiled. There are many ways to say it, but no matter what language one uses, we end in the same place: on the wrong end of God’s righteous anger (Eph. 2:3). To be sure, the effects of the Law are also a problem among people. Sin is a social, anthropological, psychological, and perhaps even genetic problem. But sin is not first or even primarily this—as sinful humans, our real problem is God. We need a solution to the problem of God, to the problem that has a name, the problem who is God. It may sound strange, even blasphemous to say it that way, but our real problem as sinners is not merely that our sins are harmful to us or to our neighbors. Our real problem is that God is angry and personally offended by our sins. God’s anger and wrath need appeasement. Our real problem has a name, and his name is God (see Rom. 5:10, in which we are spoken of as God’s enemies). The gospel, or the doctrine of justification, describes the solution to just such a problem. This

Formula of Concord

gainst both the errors just recounted, we unanimously believe, teach, and confess

that Christ is our righteousness neither according to the divine nature alone nor according to the human nature alone, but that it is the entire Christ according to both natures, in His obedience alone, which as God and man He rendered to the Father even unto death, and thereby merited for us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, as it is written: As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous, Rom. 5, 19. Accordingly, we believe, teach, and

confess that our righteousness before God is [this very thing], that God forgives us our sins out of pure grace, without any work, merit, or worthiness of ours preceding, present, or following, that He presents and imputes to us the righteousness of Christ’s obedience, on account of which righteousness we are received into grace by God, and regarded as righteous. We believe, teach, and confess that faith alone is the means and instrument whereby we lay hold of Christ, and thus in Christ of that righteousness which avails before God, for whose sake this faith is imputed to us for righteousness, Rom. 4, 5. Formula of Concord (1577), Ch. 3.

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1 5

means that the gospel is, in the first instance, a theological category: It describes how it is with us before God. It tells the good news of what God has done for us in Christ to solve the problem of him. This is a point made abundantly clear by Paul in his extraordinary presentation of the gospel in Romans 3. He says, “There is no fear of God” (v. 18), “the whole world [is] held accountable to God” (v. 19), “no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law” (v. 20), “but now a righteousness from God … has been made known” (v. 21), and so forth. The most important result of Christ’s perfect obedience is that God’s wrath was turned away and he turned a favorable gaze upon us (2 Cor. 5:19).

cation recognizes and genuinely honors the fact that our favorable standing before God is due solely to the grace of God (sola gratia). Placing the gospel at the center, therefore, means that we will give credit for our salvation nowhere except to God in Christ. The credit is laid nowhere else: not to God’s transforming work in us, nor to our faith or good works or love or obedience. The gospel gives the glory to God alone (soli Deo gloria), for God’s grace is the sole sufficient cause of our salvation before God. Finally, speaking of the gospel in a way that places Christ at the center means that we must acknowledge that a person’s salvation is brought about alone through faith (sola fide, see Rom. 1:17), as a Much of contemporary Evangelicalism has been untrue to its name by supplanting means of receiving the benefits of Christ’s work on the the gospel-centered character of Reformation theology with a man-centered focus, cross. This means that one can only very carefully speak such as our response of love or our obedience or the like. of faith as a “cause” of salvation. We are not saved because of our faith. We are Thus, the gospel first of all finds its center in the redeemed through faith as a means of receiving the work of God in Christ. This is its primary defining already perfect redemption worked out by Christ component of meaning. The doctrine of justifica- on the cross. Only in this way does Christ receive tion tells what God has done in the historical events all the glory for our salvation (Rom. 11:36). associated with the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ in first–century Palestine. It is, therefore, as the Conclusion We have seen that the doctrine of justification Reformation theologians said, extra nos, that is, outby grace on account of Christ through faith is an side of us. Its focus and center is in Christ. Secondly, it refers to the work God did for us essential. It is the hinge upon which it all hangs and (pro nobis), in the historical actions of Christ on the the foundation upon which it all stands. The reason cross. Although we rejoice in what God is doing in it’s so important is that bound up with it are such those whom he justifies, that is more properly central Christian and biblical truths as Scripture referred to as the fruit or result of the gospel (that alone, grace alone, Christ alone, and faith alone. We on the Alliance Council are committed to is, sanctification), rather than the gospel itself. The doctrine of justification, of course, brings about these truths and to their proclamation in our world abundant fruit (Gal. 5:22). And that is very impor- today. We believe that much of contemporary tant for Christians, since we have been saved for a American Evangelicalism has lost its center in the life of service to God and to one another (Eph. gospel. The doctrine of justification is, to put it 2:10). However, the gospel is about what God did simply, central. Nothing in us, not even the work for us in Christ, not what God does in us or of God in us through faith, can take the place of what Jesus did for us on the cross in history. Our through us as a result of what Christ did. Third, since it is genuinely “gospel” (i.e., good sole purpose is to restore this beautiful doctrine, news), the doctrine of justification stresses the sole and the solas that form its heart, to the central place sufficiency of Christ’s work on behalf of the world given to it by Scripture and the reformers. Only on Good Friday and Easter (solo Christo). It is a word this precious teaching gives full glory to Christ and of God located specifically and narrowly in Christ’s maximum comfort to troubled consciences. ■ obedience (active in his living and passive in his dying). This good word was consummated at the cross and announced victoriously at the J. A. O. Preus (Th.D., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis) is Resurrection of our Lord. Seated at the right hand of president of Concordia University Irvine, California, and a the Father in glory, the risen Lord awaits the last day member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing when he will return to judge the living and the dead. Evangelicals. He is also the author of Just Words Thus, in the fourth place, the doctrine of justifi- (Concordia Publishing House, 2000).

1 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

RIGHT WITH GOD | Why Justification Still Matters

What’s All the Fuss About? The Status of the Justification Debate

ow is the doctrine of justification faring in our day? Historically, of course, the reformers approached it with the utmost seriousness. For example, consider the impassioned plea of Martin Luther written in the preface to his Forty-Five Theses drawn up in 1537: “The article of justification is the master and prince, the lord, the ruler, and the judge over all kinds of doctrines; it preserves and governs all Church doctrine and raises up our conscience before God. Without this article the world is utter death and darkness.” John Calvin reiterated Luther’s passion when he called the doctrine of justification “the principal hinge by which religion is supported.”

The Dangers of Familiarity and Presumption ne need not deny the article of justification as “the article by which the Church stands or falls” in order to actually deny its central role in our faith and practice. There are many ways of losing touch with this article of faith. First, we must recognize that by frequent handling any doctrine can lose its sharp edges. It no longer startles us that God justifies the wicked. Forgiveness and divine acceptance can easily become little more than a general “niceness” in God—and perhaps also in us—that renders the reality of God’s wrath and justice innocuous. As a result, we begin taking justification for granted and eventually may even start looking for

by M I C H A E L H O RT O N M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1 7

something else—some other interpretation of reconciliation with God—that sounds more exciting. Second, we can lose touch with this doctrine because we assume that everybody in our churches has the gospel nailed down, and it’s something else that should preoccupy the believer now, after his or her conversion. Related to this danger is a third: regarding the doctrine of justification as one article among many. Of course, we accept this truth, but our view of the Christian life somehow gets unhinged from justification. We begin to talk about the new birth, sanctification, covenantal obedience, adoption, union with Christ, as if these were independent from the article of justification. Commenting again on this important doctrine, John Calvin said, “Whenever knowledge of it is taken away the glory of Christ is extinguished, religion abolished, the Church destroyed, and the hope of salvation utterly overthrown” (“Reply to Sadoleto,” Tracts I:41). Elsewhere Calvin added, “The safety of the Church depends as much on this doctrine as human life does on the soul. If the purity of this doctrine is in any degree impaired, the Church has received a deadly wound” (“On the Necessity of Reforming the Church,” Tracts I:137). This central tenet of our faith, which John Calvin and Martin Luther said was the foundation of the

So if the reformers got it wrong, how are we to understand Paul and the doctrine of justification? First of all, Sanders’s “New Perspective on Paul” shares with other interpretations a position known as mono-covenantalism; that is, there is only one covenant, a covenant of grace, running from the time of the fall to the time of the consummation. Gone, therefore, is the law–gospel or covenant of works–covenant of grace contrast that Reformation Christianity claims to see so clearly in Scripture. The question of the Bible, then, is not Luther’s, “How can I find a gracious God?”, but rather, “How can Gentiles be accepted into an essentially Jewish covenant? Must they be circumcised? Keep the ceremonial laws and festivals?” It isn’t a question of sinners being justified before God in some legal, courtroom sense, but it is a matter of determining the criteria for membership. How does one justify his or her claim to belong to the people of God? That is justification, the New Perspective insists: One gets in by grace and stays in by obedience. Whatever the differences between Roman Catholic and Arminian approaches, and they are surely legion, at least on this point the New Perspective does not actually break new ground. For Rome and at least many leading Arminian thinkers, the New Testament has styled a “new law,” and Jesus Christ is Second Temple Judaism key assertions: Understanding Judaism chiefly viewed as a second Moses. “Neonomianism” was is necessary for understanding Jesus and Paul. Both Jesus and the tag that the Puritans put on this error, and it is alive Paul are related to Pharisaic movement. Pharisaic Judaism is not and well under the guise of groundbreaking discoveries legalistic tradition. Earliest Christianity is a form of Judaism. in the realm of Pauline studies. Law and gospel collapse — Compiled by Charles E. Carter into each other, as “salvation” is defined chiefly in terms of Church and the hope of our salvation, is facing the ethical constitution of the people of God. And new threats and challenges as deadly as those the the problem of sin and grace is replaced with the reformers witnessed over four hundred years ago. problem of Jewish and Gentile relations. Let’s look at several recent challenges to the tradiWhile the New Perspective is increasingly tional understanding of justification. drawing a lot of fire from biblical scholars (Jewish and Christian), it is increasingly popular in evanThe New Perspective(s) gelical seminaries. To be sure, we must always be n 1977, British biblical scholar E. P. Sanders open to new light from sacred Scripture and be published Paul and Palestinian Judaism. In this willing to correct our cherished interpretations if groundbreaking work and its sequel, Paul, the better exegesis makes them untenable. However, Law and the Jewish People (1983), Sanders argued that the fact that this New Perspective has suffered seriPaul had been misunderstood, particularly since ous blows from specialists in inter-testamental the Reformation. That is because Luther and Judaism and Pauline studies should at least warn us Calvin treated first-century Judaism, even not to renounce too quickly the interpretation that Phariseeism, as if it were merely an anticipation of has been, in its general features, so obvious to carethe works-righteousness that they detected in ful exegetes and the people of God in their ordimedieval Christendom. nary reading of the biblical text.

FYI I

1 8 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

Ecumenical Declarations was borne. Yet in the ECT debates he referred ver since the sixteenth century, those in the repeatedly to the Reformation formulation of justiLutheran and Reformed traditions have been fication as “fine print.” This is perhaps the most committed to the unity of the Church. It is serious challenge to our contemporary confidence not a question of doctrine or unity, but of unity in the centrality of this teaching. Even where the through doctrine. Agreement is simultaneously an evangelical doctrine of justification is officially act of confession and fellowship. It would, there- embraced, in actual practice it has been pushed to fore, be out of character for descendants of the the periphery. Reformation to reject in principle the possibility In the present day of ecumenical paper drafting for the widest Christian unity and for them not to and signing, one need not deny any particular forwork in tangible ways for greater visible unity. mulation in order to achieve agreement. An evanRecent attempts to reconcile the churches have gelical may believe that he or she is accepted not ignored the primary obstacle: our respective before a holy God without any personal merit, formulations of how God saves sinners; specifical- whereas a Roman Catholic firmly believes that he ly, the doctrine of justificaHistorical criticism is “the process through which one attempts tion. Lutheranism has been beset by the emergence of to reconstruct the historical situation out of which a writing the New Finnish Interpretation that concenarose and how it came to be written.” As such it involves the trates on the central Eastern Orthodox doctrine of theosis (i.e., human participation in determination of the writing’s date and place of composition, along with the role of editors God’s own life) and argues that Luther’s theology is best in compiling certain texts. understood in these terms. — See The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, 1996 The big difference here between a reformational understanding of justification and these other or she is accepted as a result of his or her meritoviews (whether Wesleyan, Roman Catholic, or rious cooperation with grace. An evangelical may Eastern Orthodox) is not that we deny what they believe that grace alone saves, whereas a Roman affirm; namely, sanctification and union with Catholic may go on believing in indulgences, Christ, but that we go on to affirm what they deny; merit, purgatory, and the intercession of the saints. namely, that God declares sinners righteous solely This, in fact, was explicitly declared in “The Gift on the basis of Christ’s active and passive obedi- of Salvation,” the follow-up document to ECT. Of ence received through divinely given faith alone. course, it is impossible for an evangelical signatoIn 1995, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” ry to then go on saying that justification as a pure(ECT) was published with an impressive list of sig- ly gratuitous declaration based on the imputation natories from both sides. Largely through the of an “alien righteousness” is central, much less energy of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, a well-known essential, for a true understanding of the gospel. former Lutheran pastor who became a Roman Much that has been said of ECT would hold true Catholic priest, as well as Prison Fellowship for the Joint Declaration between Rome and the founder Charles Colson, ECT became a flashpoint Lutheran World Federation. At the end of the day, for debate over the nature of the gospel itself. In said representatives for both sides, the mutual conits wake, as many indications of fracture as signs of demnations of the sixteenth century no longer unity began to appear. Fissures in an already divid- hold because neither of the partners actually ed Evangelicalism became chasms. Though found- believes what the other condemned its rivals for ed for broader purposes, the newly formed Alliance holding true. of Confessing Evangelicals became intimately involved with these debates and insisted then, as Evangelical Apathy hese are not the only challenges to our now, on maintaining a witness to the centrality of understanding of justification and its the biblical teaching of justification by grace alone, importance. Even in a number of Lutheran through faith alone, because of Christ alone. One Reformed leader who vigorously defended his sig- and Reformed circles, I have detected a somewhat nature of ECT had earlier called the doctrine of jus- different attitude toward this doctrine and its tification, as the reformers understood it, the Atlas defense. Some people openly criticize the reformupon whose shoulders the whole Christian faith ers for extremism, a denial of inner transformation

FYI

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 1 9

in favor of a merely objective declaration—as if the theology of the Reformation in any way denied that sanctification was an essential corollary to justification. Much of the preaching one encounters in evangelical churches, even Lutheran and Reformed, is a steady diet of “practical” moralism. Instead of energizing believers with the triumphant

self-improvement to the practical neglect of being right with a holy God. All of these tendencies share at least one major characteristic: they are all fearful of antinomianism (i.e., license) and uniformly concerned about underscoring the subjective work of the Spirit in our hearts, transforming us by degrees. Once again, as with the forced choice between justification It is only the Reformation perspective that provides a satisfactory exegetical or sanctification, this embraces a false antithesis: account of the satisfaction of God’s justice that then establishes the relationship of either the “court room” or the “family room”; legal declarasonship on the unshakable foundation that it needs before the heart can tion or moral transformation; judge-and-accused or fatherand-son. Only the Reforconfidently cry out, “Abba, Father!” mation doctrine of justification refuses this false antitheindicative—that God in Christ has reconciled us to sis, affirming both the wholly forensic (legal) charhimself—many pastors weigh them down with acter of justification as the imputation of an alien bare imperatives. Their preaching is chiefly exhor- righteousness and the inseparable reality of new tation and uplift rather than a startling announce- birth and new obedience that inevitably follows ment of God’s work. Some preaching has adopted from this new relationship. Only this Reformation the therapeutic paradigm, where one would never perspective affirms both the courtroom and the think of sin and grace in exclusively vertical terms: family room. In fact, it is only the Reformation being reconciled with a holy God who is clad in perspective that provides a satisfactory exegetical righteous vengeance. Rather, salvation is practical- account of the satisfaction of God’s justice that ly reduced to Jesus picking up the broken pieces of then establishes the relationship of sonship on the our lives and making us better. Whether in its unshakable foundation that it needs before the harsher or milder forms, therapeutic moralism heart can confidently cry out, “Abba, Father!” It is shares with all synergistic efforts an emphasis on the evangelical doctrine of justification that insists

Understanding Luth

P.Sandersmistakesthesemi-PelagianismofSecondTempleJudaism forPelagianismpureandsimple, andthusmisunderstands Luther’s critiqueoftheRomanCatholicChurchaswellashisgraspofPaul. Sandersisreactingtosomethingthatdoesn’texist. Hehas,therefore, foundedamovementwithanillusoryraison d’etre!

Let me explain: Sanders thinks that Luther’s struggle with Roman Catholicism was a struggle against Pelagianism; therefore Luther projected the straw man of Pelagianism onto Judaism. This is untrue. Luther’s objection to the scholastic theology of the Roman Catholic Church was never to its “Pelagianism” because the Catholic Church was never Pelagian. It neither believed that salvation was according to works of the Law nor

2 0 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

that the human being had to work in order to gain the gracious favor of God. Medieval Catholicism was semi-Pelagian. This is to say, the Church taught that man and God were co-operators in salvation, that grace could complement and supplement human nature. Luther and the Church of Rome agreed that salvation was by faith. The difference was that Luther said it was by faith alone. We are not participants with God. We are not co-creators with him. We are not in any kind of relationship that involves mutuality or co-dependence. Salvation is a one-way street! The sola in sola fide is crucial. When you read most accounts of Judaism, both then (i.e., in Jesus’ and Paul’s time) and now, you see very quickly that Judaism operates in what Christian theologians recognize as semi-

that the sinner who stood condemned is now so received into God’s presence that he or she need never fear the Law’s judgment, so that now we relate not as criminals but as adopted children. Neither Eastern Orthodoxy nor Roman Catholicism—nor, for that matter, the various Protestant departures from the evangelical doctrine—proclaims both justification and sanctification. All of these departures, in one way or another, collapse the former into the latter. Only in the evangelical doctrine do we have both. Therefore, whatever disagreements we may continue to have materially over this issue, it would be more helpful if our critics would be fair in admitting that it is they, not we, who are reductionistic. It is not we who give up one or the other. Within the grand theology of our union with Christ, churches of the Reformation sing of that “double cure,” which saves us from both sin’s guilt and power. With Paul and the whole of Scripture, we announce the great deeds of God for our redemption in its three tenses: past (atonement and justification), present (new birth and sanctification), and future (glorification). But if justification is not the central fact of God’s acceptance of sinners, there can be no amount of sanctification, no promise of glorification, that can make up the difference that God’s righteousness requires. In the end, the arguments, when distilled to their most basic essence, have not really changed. This realization lends support to the insistence of

Augustine, Luther, and Calvin that whenever the Church declines, it is always in the direction of some version of the Pelagian error, however unintentionally. It is just part of who we are as children of Adam to resist the kind of salvation for which Paul can only break out in praise: “For of him and to him and through him are all things, to whom be the glory now and forevermore. Amen” (Rom. 11:36). ■

Michael Horton (Ph.D., Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the University of Coventry) is associate professor of apologetics and historical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and chairs the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Dr. Horton’s newest books are A Better Way (Baker, 2002) and Covenant and Eschatology (Westminster/John Knox, 2002)

her and “Faith Alone” Pelagian categories. Judaism, then and now, teaches that the will of human beings is to be free, more or less. With support from the community, considerable leeway from the standpoint of a gracious God, and extensive possibilities of repentance, forgiveness, and restoration, the human being can fly right. Judaism regards the Christian idea of original sin as overly pessimistic. Judaism shares with Christianity the hope of God’s grace to sinners, as Sanders rightly pointed out. But the New Testament presents the human condition as less tractable, less subject to effort and amelioration, than Judaism generally does. Luther understood from Paul that Judaism did not go far enough in its analysis of the human problem. Luther’s inherited religion had been semi-Pelagian, as Judaism was and still is.

Sanders and his colleagues in the New Perspective have missed completely the distinction between Pelagianism and semiPelagianism. They miss both Luther and Paul’s point, and do not appear to be aware of the vital difference in anthropology that distinguishes rabbinic Judaism from Pauline Christianity. Rev. Paul F. M. Zahl (Dr. Theol., University of Tubingen ) is Dean of the Cathedral Church of the Advent (Episcopal) in Birmingham, Alabama, and a member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. Dr. Zahls’ latest book is Five Women of the English Reformation (Eerdmans, 2001).

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 2 1

In Print March/April Book Recommendations Justified by Faith Alone R.C. Sproul This booklet in the Today’s Issues Series clarifies the doctrine of justification by contrasting Protestant and Catholic understandings of the matter. B-SPR-42 $5.00 Pearl of Christian Comfort Petrus Dethanus This little volume is a dialogue between a mature believer and a young Christian designed “for the instruction and consolation of all troubled hearts who are not properly able to distinguish between the law and the gospel.” B-DETH-1 $12.50 Revisiting Paul’s Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the New Perspective Peter Stuhlmacher Stuhlmacher challenges recent interpretations of Paul to show that legal understandings of justification were crucial to the apostle’s proclamation of the gospel. B-STU-1 $13.00 Just Words: Understanding the Fullness of the Gospel J.A.O. Preus In this excellently written book, Preus shows the rich variety of language the Bible provides preachers to proclaim the saving gospel of Christ Jesus. B-PR-1 $13.00 Christ Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification Mark A. Seifrid Seifrid offers a comprehensive analysis of Paul’s understanding of justification and challenges the “new perspective’s” basic assumptions by reaffirming the theology of the Reformers. B-SEI-1 $20.00 Justification and Variegated Nomism, Vol. 1 D.A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark Siefrid, eds. A comprehension of Paul’s understanding of the law and justification has been a perennial problem for historians and theologians. The need for further clarity has given rise to this collection of essays by an international list of esteemed scholars who seek, in the first of two volumes, to illuminate the complexities of the Judaism of Jesus’ (and Paul’s) day. B-CAR-22 $40.00

To order, complete and mail the order form in the envelope provided. Or, use our secure e-commerce catalog at www.AllianceNet.org. For phone orders call 215-546-3696 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET (credit card orders only).

2 2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

On Tape From the Alliance Archives Romans, Volume 1: Justification by Faith James Boice In uncovering the theme of justification and its related ideas in Romans 1-4, Dr. Boice is keenly aware of the implications of Paul’s message. He tells many stories of changed lives and frequently uses famous hymns to present the thoughts of Paul in poetic form. Word studies on the Greek text clarify the meaning and richness of Paul’s words. Dr. Boice sees Christians at risk from hollowed-out theologies and so displays God’s transcendent holiness, power, and love as a call to living a disciplined faith. C-R-1 30 TAPES IN 3 ALBUMS, $127.20 The Book of Galatians An eleven-tape White Horse Inn series with hosts Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger and Rod Rosenbladt on the major themes in the book of Galatians, including justification, the heart of the gospel, sanctification, and Christian liberty. C-WHG-S 11 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $58.00 Lord, Have Mercy! Philadelphia Conference on Reformation Theology 2001 Lord, have mercy! That is the cry of every sinner ever saved. A God of mercy! That is what the gospel proclaims, and God’s mercy is central to every aspect of Christian salvation. If one thing is needed in our shallow and man-centered age it is a fresh view of our great God. Knowing his mercy invites us to a closer, deeper relationship with him. It encourages us to study God and to make him the center of our lives. Furthermore, God’s mercy is what makes Christianity good news at every stage: in God’s sovereign election, in the forgiveness of our sin, in the call to practical godliness, and in the

future entrance of God’s people into glory. Speakers: R. C. Sproul, Eric Alexander, Ligon Duncan, and Philip Ryken address this topic in our 28th annual conference series. C-01-POA 6 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $33.00 CD-01PSOA 6 MESSAGES ON COMPACT DISC PLUS THE 3 SEMINAR SESSIONS, $53.00 Sing a New Song This twelve-part series on audio cassette features lessons on the Bible passages from which Dr. Boice wrote twelve hymns. Along with each message you’ll hear its accompanying hymn. C-SNS 6 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $33.00 Church Matters: A new series on the White Horse Inn. Within and outside the Body of Christ there are many groups who call themselves a church, but what exactly is a true Christian Church? Why are there so many different local congregations and denominations? Is the church you're attending practicing biblical Christianity, and if not how and when do you leave? White Horse Inn hosts Michael Horton, Kim Riddlebarger, Ken Jones, and Rod Rosenbladt discuss church matters in a recent radio series. C-CM-S 2 TAPES IN AN ALBUM, $13.00

Subscribe to Modern Reformation Magazine Six times a year, Modern Reformation will sharpen and challenge you. Why not subscribe today?

U.S. One year $22 (MR1YR) Two years $40 (MR2YR) U.S. Student One year $15 (MRS1YR) Two years not available Canada One year $25 (MR1YR) Two years $45 (MR2YR) Europe One year $40 (MR1YR) Two years $75 (MR2YR) Other One year $45 (MR1YR) Two years $85 (MR2YR) To subscribe, complete and mail the order form in the envelope provided. Or call 215-546-3696 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET (credit card orders only). All subscriptions must be paid in U.S. currency.

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 2 3 7

RIGHT WITH GOD | Why Justification Still Matters

A Reformed T

he New Perspective on Paul, as it has been called, raises serious questions for Protestants committed to the doctrine of justification by faith. This school of thought does so in two ways. On the one hand, it questions the Apostle Paul’s relationship to—and understanding of— Judaism. On the other hand, it undermines the Reformation’s understanding of Pauline the-

ology. To put it bluntly, this reassessment narrows the distance between Paul and the Judaism of his day while it widens the gap between Paul and the Reformation. Also, these questions themselves raise other questions, which cast doubt upon the New Perspective’s conclusions. A standard test case for New Perspective advocates has been the Reformation’s understanding of Paul. With few exceptions, they disparage the tendency to see the reformers’ conflict with Rome as a virtual rerun of Paul’s opposition to Judaism, specifically of the argument Paul makes in Galatians. I remain unpersuaded, however, that the classical Protestant interpretation of Paul is fundamentally wrong. Granted, the first–century Mediterranean world of Paul may not have been as “introspective” as the West since Augustine; nor should we impose Luther’s conversion experience and spiritual biography on Paul, for example, in understanding the Damascus road event. Admittedly, Paul may not

have passed through a crisis of conscience as Luther did. Yet neither should we exclude the possibility that, at least in some respect, psychologizing Paul on this matter, on the basis of his letters and material in Acts, seems an unwarranted and risky undertaking. But time, I believe, will make increasingly clear the essential continuity between the arguments of Paul and the reformers. The counter-protest, massively launched by E. P. Sanders, is that Second Temple Judaism, unlike late medieval Roman Catholicism, is a religion of grace, not merit. But that summary characterization begs a host of historical and theological issues. For one, Rome conceives of salvation, from beginning to end, as by grace. It understands its sacramental system as a whole, beginning with baptism, as mediating saving grace. Its eventual distinction between condign and congruent merit (see FYI on page 28), for instance, reflects the effort to subordinate or contain the notion of merit within that of

of the New 2 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

by RICHARD GAFFIN

d Critique grace, to make merit attainable by grace. At the same time, ongoing study clearly shows that a meritorious mindset, though perhaps not as uniform as past scholarship has maintained, is nonetheless not foreign to the Judaism of Paul’s day (e.g., 4 Ezra; Josephus). The Righteousness of God in Christ ut what is crucial here, of course, is not the language of grace, nor any notion of divine gratuity. The reformers, following Paul and the other biblical writers, came to recognize that saving grace is meaningful and real only as the revelation of the righteousness of God in Christ. Only such righteousness as displayed in Christ (as the faithfulness of God to himself and his covenant promises embodied in Christ) is reckoned, by faith alone, as the believer’s. In addition, what is inherently true of Christ—the head of the body—is by imputation true of his members. The reformers, faithful to Paul, recognized that where righteousness is not so understood and experienced, all speaking about grace is ultimately pretense. Such effort by sinners is inherently merit-oriented effort, whether or not it is recognized as such. At the end

Perspective M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 2 5

of the day, Rome and “the present Jerusalem” (Gal. 4:25), despite all differences, are one in this regard. One overall effect of the New Perspective tendency to reduce or moderate the distance between Paul and the Judaism of his day is that it appears to assume a basic continuity between the Old Testament and the various mainstreams within Judaism. For both James D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright, two leading spokespersons for the New Perspective, the Old Testament roots of Paul’s theology and its roots in Second Temple Judaism seem to be interchangeable, or at least continuous. What one would think is an obvious distinction, at least from an evangelical perspective, is repeatedly glossed over. There is little appreciation or even recognition that Old Testament revelation and Jewish religion and theology are not the same thing and are often in conflict, even in Old Testament times and especially in Paul’s day. Nor is there an appropriate awareness of the canonical distinctiveness of the Jewish scriptures in relation to subsequent sources. The piety expressed throughout the Hebrew prophets and elsewhere in the Psalms, for instance, is normative in a way that the Qumran materials [those extra-biblical writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, produced by an apocalyptic Jewish sect at the time of Christ], are not, even when similar sentiments are expressed in the latter. This is not to deny a factor of continuity, that there remained in Paul’s day a faithful remnant (e.g., Rom. 11:5; cf, Luke 2:25ff., 36–38), individuals

found, no doubt, among the various mainstreams, even within the religious establishment (Luke 23:50–51; cf. John 3: 1ff.; 7:50–51; 9:16; 19:39). But these, as the idea of the remnant suggests, were the exception. Wright relentlessly insists that Paul “did not (as it were) abandon Judaism for something else” throughout his writing. But, while Paul certainly did not abandon the religion of the Old Testament, just for the sake of fidelity to it and to the God of Abraham, he most certainly did abandon the dominant streams in the Judaism of his day, which were relentlessly opposed first by Jesus and then by himself. Judaism and Christianity are two different religions. Not to recognize that fact will inevitably distort the interpretation of Paul as well as Jewish-Christian dialogue today. In fact, both Dunn and Wright see their reduced distance between Paul and Judaism as affording advantages and new opportunities for such dialogue. This is explicit in Dunn; more implicit but, I judge, pervasively present in Wright. In this regard, the difference in how each construes Paul’s view of God will inevitably come into play. For Wright, Paul’s trinitarian conception is found to be quite at home within first-century Jewish monotheism. Dunn, primarily in view of that same monotheism, argues for a less than fully trinitarian conception. It is not difficult to imagine that in current dialogue, Dunn will receive the more sympathetic hearing. As to the alleged distance between the reformers and Paul, the flaw of the reformers is seen, in large part, in their preoccupation with Pelagian-

“Solution to Pli

n reading the literature of the New Perspective carefully, we see several glaring weaknesses that deserve attention. One of the catchphrases of the New Perspective is “solution to plight.” The proponents believe that Paul underwent an experience on the road to Damascus that took place apart from any supposed inner struggle that we expect he might have been having beforehand. Because the character of Judaism as a benign “covenantal nomism” did not require a solution like Christ, the appearance of Christ to Paul must have come to him as a solution before there ever was a plight. The New Perspective argues that the old model in Christianity, by which people move from the plight of failed law-keeping to the solution of the grace of God in Christ, is untrue to Paul’s experi-

2 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

ence. They say that what happened to Paul, and, therefore, what is central in early Christianity, is the move from solution to plight, not from plight to solution. So the New Perspective calls for a paradigm shift in thinking about Paul and thus, by consequence, about the essence of Christian experience, the essence of justification before God, and the essence of the Christian life. The idea that human beings in reality go from solution to plight is impossible to sustain. This is especially true if you have had any experience of medicine, psychological counseling, parish ministry, nursing, working with addicts, any of the helping professions. As a person who has been in parish ministry for over 25 years, I can attest that I have never met a person who, from his or her own account of reality, was going in the direction “solution to plight.”

FYI

ism; the inveterate tenCovenantal Nomism(1) God has chosen Israel and (2) given the dency especially of the Reformation tradition has law. The law implies both (3) God’s promise to maintain elecbeen to read this preoccupation into Paul. This, tion and (4) the requirement to obey. (5) God rewards obedithereby, attributes to him the Reformation’s own ence and punishes transgression. (6) The law provides for means of atonement, and atoneof misunderstanding Judaism as “proto- ment results in (7) reestablishment of the covenantal relationship. (8) All those who are Pelagian,” “a Pelagian religion of self-help moral- maintained in the covenant of obedience, atonement and God’s mercy belong to the group ism” (Wright). This charge is a common which will be saved. An important interpretation of the first and last points is that election refrain in Wright and also repeatedly surfaces in and ultimately salvation are considered to be by God’s mercy rather than human achieveDunn’s discussion of Paul’s teaching on the law and ment. (As outlined in E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism [1983]) justification. — Compiled by Charles E. Carter Apart from the reminder above that meritorious and, therefore, moralistic tendencies are by or silent. Dunn is clearly deficient. Both fail to no means nonexistent in Second Temple Judaism, a affirm that Paul teaches the imputation of Adam’s further observation needs to be made. When I first transgression (see Romans 5:12ff)—that guilt consider the conclusions that our two authors for sin is an essential factor in original sin (the conreach on Paul’s understanding of sin, I cannot help dition of sin into which every human being is but envision the tired but knowing smile of born). Dunn, in fact, rejects that Romans 5 teaches Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, observing, as this: “Nevertheless, guilt only enters into the reckhe surveys the ebb and flow of Church history, that oning with the individual’s own transgression.” it’s not so much the ghost of Pelagius that he fears “Human beings are not held responsible for the as the ghost of semi-Pelagius! state in which they are born. That is the starting Both authors speak of sin as incurring guilt, but point of their personal responsibility, a starting on what constitutes guilt Wright is at best unclear point for which they are not liable.”

ght”? Get Real! The New Perspective proponents will quote the Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, who taught something a little like solution to plight. Barth compared the Christian faith, as experienced in life, to a person who is recovering in the hospital from a terrible car crash. Only gradually, as the patient begins to find out where he or she is and what exactly has happened, does the extent of the disaster become understood. It takes the cure to see the danger he or she was in. Now that is a possible scenario. Many of us have seen this in trauma wards, among accident victims, or with stroke victims. But it is the exception, because the overwhelming majority of people come to you with a problem in search of a cure. True, people may not know what the real problem is. They may not see

the extent, consequences, or origins of it; but they come, initially, with a perceived need. People come to you seeking help! Because the proponents of the New Perspective have misplaced the Judaism of Paul’s time on the spectrum of classical Christian thought, they have misunderstood Paul’s plight. It doesn’t make sense to them. They have, therefore, improvised the “plight to solution” scenario. I predict it will fall to pieces because it has little contact with the way people exist in everyday life.

b y PA U L F. M . Z A H L M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 2 7

The Pelagian/semi-Pelagian axiom that ability is the measure of accountability could hardly be expressed more clearly. Where, in this or similar fashion, personal responsibility is removed from the notion of original sin, then the undeniable “givenness” of sin as part of the human condition from birth, sin in its corporate dimensions, will be seen, inevitably, as an alien, enslaving power. The accent then will fall on

able logic, and Paul presses a little way down that road . . . to push further down that road is quickly to lose Paul and the thread of his argument.” That thread concerns election, understood exclusively as corporate, with a view to God’s role for Israel among the nations. Negative statements encountered serve to highlight “the positive side of God’s purpose”; together they form “God’s eschatological chiaroscuro” [chiaro-scuro: Medieval theologians distinguished merit that strictly deserved light and dark parts in a work of art]. All told, “we may say a reward (meritum de condigno) from that for which a reward was that Paul’s theology of predestination is itself caught merely appropriate (meritum de congruo). The latter could be within the eschatological tension—the brighter side of gained by the nonjustified who heeded God’s voice as known through reason and con- predestination as a function of the already, the dark side science or through the church. Though their actions were tainted with sin and, strictly of predestination as a function of the not yet of God’s speaking, could not deserve God’s favor, God was pleased to reward them with sanctifying ultimate purpose of mercy” (italics added). grace. But once aided by sanctifying grace individuals, through the exercise of their free Wright does not address the issue of predestination wills, could produce merit de condigno, which strictly deserved divine rewards.... Martin directly, and undoubtedly it was not within his purview to Luther insisted that these teachings encouraged people to assume that they could obey do so. Where he does touch on election, it is viewed as God’s law through their own efforts. Instead, he argued, the law’s function is to show us our corporate (Israel as a nation). It does seem pertinent, howutter inability to do so and drive us to repentance and faith. We are wholly incapable, both ever, to observe that, given his orientation at a number of before and after we come to faith, of doing anything that could truly merit God’s reward.” points already noted, particularly that God’s wrath and jus— T. N. Finger, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 1984 tice are penultimate (and no more than metaphorical) sinners as helpless victims. Correlatively, accounta- expressions of his love, it is not clear that he would bility and guilt will be limited to personal, voluntary differ substantially with Dunn. acts and so give rise to the temptation to find remeTo be sure, both Wright and Dunn, in espousing dies that are essentially moralistic. the New Perspective, have much to teach serious stuFinally, on two matters integral to Reformed dents of Paul. But those convinced by their own study theology, the New Perspective represents a con- that the Reformation tradition is preponderantly sensus that appears to hold, with few exceptions, in faithful to the apostle, particularly to his teaching on the study of Paul today, especially within the his- sin and salvation, will have to conclude that the intertorical-critical tradition. First, there is little sympa- ests of that tradition are not well served by either. ■ thy for, in fact downright antipathy toward, any notion of imputation. Second, and certainly related to the first, is the matter of double predestina- Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. (Th.D., Westminster Theological tion. Referring to Romans 9:14–23, Dunn speaks Seminary) is professor of biblical and systematic theology at of “a fascination, part attraction at its theological Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia). He is the rigor, part repulsion at the portrayal of a God so author of The Centrality of the Resurrection (Baker seemingly arbitrary,” but warns against being “side- Book House, 1978). This article is adapted from “Paul the tracked into debates about predestination” and Theologian,” Westminster Theological Journal 62 rejects “that election in that passage (Rom. 9:1–23, (2000) 121-41. or elsewhere in Paul for that matter) concerns individuals and their eternal destiny.” Though “a fullblown predestinarianism seems to be the unavoid-

FYI

2 8 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

RIGHT WITH GOD | Why Justification Still Matters

Justification and

Sanctification Distinguished t is a difficult and perhaps even dangerous task to take a single doctrine from the body of Christian theology and isolate it. You have to ensure that the doctrine being extracted and examined is not given a life independent of the body from which it is taken. In other words, care must be given that the doctrine being isolated for examination is not considered a part that is greater than the whole. The possible danger of magnifying a single doctrine is the risk of appearing to undervalue any or all of the doctrines not being treated simultaneously. Having provided this warning, scrutinizing the doctrine of justification by faith is a valuable enterprise because it is so often misunderstood.

The Cornerstone of the Gospel uestion thirty-four of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Baptist Revision) asks, “What is justification?” The answer: “Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.” Of all of the issues that fueled the Protestant Reformation, this one was most vigorously debated and was considered by the reformers to be the cornerstone of

by KEN JONES M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 2 9

the gospel. For Roman Catholics, justification was more than a legal or judicial declaration; it consisted in God actually making the sinner righteous through the infusion of righteousness rather than the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. The concern behind Rome’s position was that the reformers were overthrowing the doctrine of sanctification, thereby giving license to sin. Roman Catholics could not fathom the idea that a sinner could be accepted by God while still a sinner. This is the exact opposite of Luther’s claim of simul iustus et peccator (at the same time just and sinner). Both the Council of Trent and the New Catholic Catechism (1992) state “Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and renewal of the interior man.” In contrast, as theologian Louis Berkhof explains in his Manual of Christian Doctrine, justification “is not an act or process of renewal, such as regeneration, conversion and sanctification, and does not affect the condition but the state of the sinner.” John Gill, the eighteenth-century

of the Reformation’s genius and more importantly for what it explains about the gracious character of salvation. For one thing, this distinction is what the Bible teaches. The fourth chapter of Romans is a thorough and clear articulation of the doctrine of justification. By this point in the epistle, the Apostle Paul has already established the need for the atonement: “There is none righteous;” “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” He has also illuminated the dynamics of the atonement: “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness.” This leads to the powerful statement of Romans 3:26: “That he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Having explained the dynamics of justification, Paul uses chapter 4 to illustrate this doctrine. Here it is worth noting that sanctification (or good works on the part of the person that is justified) is summarily dismissed as the ground for justification. In fact, a careless reading of this chapSanctification is about our being conformed to Christ inwardly, but justification is ter could give the impression that Paul is not concerned about something different though related; it is about God’s declaration of about good works, but nothing could be further from the righteousness based on the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. truth. The Apostle’s aim is to address the specific question of how a person gains a right Baptist theologian, explains that justification is not standing before God. Sanctification is about our “to be understood of making men righteous, by being conformed to Christ inwardly, but justificainfusing righteousness into them; for this is to con- tion is about something different though related; it found justification and sanctification together is about God’s declaration of righteousness based which are two distinct things…. The word justify is on the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. never used in a physical sense, for producing any In Romans 4:2, Paul says that if Abraham were real internal change in men; but in a forensic sense, justified by works, he would have a reason to boast, and stands opposed, not to a state of impurity and and then in verse 4 that “to him who works the unholiness, but to a state of condemnation.” wages are not counted as grace but as debt” (this will be elaborated on below). The crux of Paul’s Distinction between Justification argument is really in verse 5 where he states, “but and Sanctification to him who does not work but believes on him who or Protestants, justification and sanctification justifies the ungodly his faith is accounted for are two distinct doctrines and should be treat- righteousness.” Again, Paul unequivocally divorces ed as such. Berkhof defines sanctification as human works from the discussion of justification. “that gracious and continuous operation of the So, this is not a distortion by Protestantism or the Holy Spirit by which he purifies the sinner from Reformed tradition. This is a biblical doctrine and the pollution of sin, renews his holy nature in the it is important that we likewise distinguish justifiimage of God, and enables him to perform good cation and sanctification as Scripture does. Failure works.” It is not that Protestants overthrow or to do so confuses these doctrines and Scripture undervalue the doctrine of sanctification. To the itself. contrary, we believe that the Bible presents justification and sanctification as distinct, and, therefore, Saving Faith as Gift of God they should be treated and defined separately. otice what happens if justification is not The distinction between justification and sancdistinguished from sanctification. Saving tification is crucial both to a proper understanding faith becomes a work because such faith

3 0 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

would then include works or sentiments that somehow merit God’s favor. This was true of the Roman Catholic system of penance and is equally true of many evangelical appeals and altar calls. In both cases, sinners are called upon in essence to show sufficient cause for God to justify them. The reformers understood saving faith to be a gift of God which, as Paul indicates in Ephesians 2:8, is passively received. Saving faith has been called the instrumental cause of justification, meaning that it is the instrument by which we receive or appropriate God’s saving grace as set forth in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Many evangelicals, however, describe faith as a power that accomplishes something rather than receiving something. An example of this erroneous view of faith is a Sunday school lesson that I read a number of years ago. The lesson was on Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus in John 3. Among other things, it taught that by exercising faith one becomes born again or regenerate. If that is indeed the case such faith would be a work that accomplishes regeneration, which then would not be a gift of God’s grace but, in the language of Romans 4, it would be a wage counted not as grace but a debt. The same can be said of appeals made to unbelievers to make a commitment to Christ. A report on “Evangelism and Church Growth” by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, 1987, has some important statements on this point: “A witness should not press for a commitment from someone who is not a Christian. It is important, therefore, that the witness have a correct understanding of the nature of faith…. Saving faith is essentially the reliance of the heart on the promises of grace set forth in the gospel. It is the hand of the alarmed sinner appropriating to oneself the forgiveness of sins won by Christ on the cross.” After making the point that faith cannot be defined as a commitment to obey and serve the Lord, the report goes on to say, “While Lutherans believe that the commitment to dedicate one’s life to the Savior will certainly follow faith, commitment is not a part of the essence of faith itself. It is instead a result or fruit of faith which belongs in the sphere of sanctification rather than justification.” That is precisely the point. By defining faith as a human work rather than a divine gift, or by combining it with requisite affections as with the “anxious bench” from the nineteenth-century revivals of Charles Finney, we confuse the doctrines of justification and sanctification. This confusion leaves the sinner with the impression that God’s grace is free once they have done their part which, as Romans 4 also points out, is not grace at all.

Confusing these two important doctrines also has important ramifications for the Christian life. It is almost inevitable that those who believe justification to consist in deeds or affections which somehow unleash God’s grace, will also have misconceptions about the dynamics of sanctification. In other words, if human works figure in the equation for justification, then the value of human works in sanctification will also be distorted. Contrary to what many evangelicals may teach or think, sanctification is not the basis upon which we are sustained in our salvation. If that were the case then each time we sin we would be brought back to a state of condemnation. With such a mindset, it would be difficult to maintain true assurance of one’s salvation. There would be no way of determining whether or not one has done enough or has confessed every sin. Sanctification without a clear and proper understanding of justification produces a life of spiritual misery and uncertainty or one of great self-deception, rife with notions of Christian perfectionism. Only with a proper understanding of justification can sinners recognize they are no longer condemned by God because (1) the righteousness of Christ is imputed to them, and (2) in his death on the cross, Christ has borne the divine wrath that was due the sinner. With this understanding the good works of the justified person (which necessarily follow) are seen in the proper light, namely, as the genuine and grateful affections of a regenerated heart. Justification and sanctification are to be distinguished but not separated. They are to be distinguished so that faith is not overthrown by works thereby nullifying grace. However, they are not to be separated so that saving faith is not confused with a barren and presumptuous faith. As the reformers claimed, “We are saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone.” Properly distinguishing these two critical doctrines puts grace, faith, and works in their proper places, with the person and work of Christ at the center of them all. “But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that as it is written ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord’” 1 Corinthians 1:30–31. ■

Rev. Ken Jones is senior pastor of Greater Union Baptist Church in Compton, California. A member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Rev. Jones can also be heard each week as a co-host of the White Horse Inn radio program.

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 3 1

RIGHT WITH GOD | Why Justification Still Matters

Finding True Peace with

GOD herefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” (Rom. 5:1–2) After Paul has presented his most detailed discussion of justification in Romans 3 and 4, he concludes that we therefore have peace with God. What is that peace? In some parts of the world, peace may mean the end of armed conflict even though the old hatreds and armaments remain. This situation is not so much peace as a cease-fire. Or peace may be referred to a situation like the American sector in Berlin after World War II. Fighting had stopped, arms laid down, and hatreds abandoned

“T

(by Germans thankful that they were not in the Russian sector), but only devastation and rubble marked the reality of life after the peace. Paul has something much more positive in mind when he thinks of peace in Romans 5:1. He thinks of the “way of peace,” a phrase from Isaiah 59:8, which he quoted in Romans 3:17. For Isaiah the way of peace stands for holiness, love, justice, integrity, truth, contentment, and righteousness. It is the straight path of life with a loving and redeeming God in contrast to the crooked path of the wicked. In the immediate context of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul juxtaposed peace with the just punishment for sin (Rom. 3:25) that God in his wrath (Rom. 4:15) would visit upon the wicked (Rom. 4:5). The reality of sin and the

by W. R O B E RT G O D F R E Y 3 2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

reality of God’s justice and holiness are essential elements of a Christian outlook on the world. One of the tragedies of so much contemporary Church life is that the truth about the holiness of God and his wrath against sin has all but disappeared from view. In an effort to “connect” with contemporary non-Christians, the Church has given much of its energy to teaching self-acceptance. The implication is that the great human need is to have peace with yourself. But such a view is far from both the biblical revelation and from true Christianity. In a Christian view of reality, the first function of the law in a fallen world is to teach the sinfulness of sin (Rom. 3:20) and that those lost in sin do not know the way of peace (Rom. 3:17). The peace in which Paul rejoiced is the peace of sin covered, wrath averted, and justice satisfied so that believing sinners are fully reconciled to God as their loving, heavenly Father in Jesus Christ. Paul’s reflections on peace as the fruit of justification may well depend in part on Isaiah 57. Of the contrite, God says, “I have seen his [sinful] ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him, creating praise on the lips of the mourners of Israel. Peace, peace, to those far and near” (Isa. 57:18–19). But of the wicked, “‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’” (Isa. 57:21). The wicked are those who are indifferent to the covenant of the true God and have formed a false righteousness for themselves. God says of them, “Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have been false to me, and have neither remembered me nor pondered this in your hearts? Is it not because I have long been silent that you do not fear me? I will expose your righteousness and your works, and they will not benefit you” (Isa. 57:11–12). Objective and Subjective Peace with God ohn Calvin, in commenting on Romans 5, explained this peace as the believer’s “serenity of conscience, which originates from the awareness of having God reconciled to himself.” Notice how Calvin has highlighted the objective and subjective dimensions of the peace. Objectively, peace with God means that God is in fact reconciled to us because of the saving work of Christ. Subjectively, peace with God means that we come to know that God is reconciled to us and that knowledge brings us serenity in our consciences that would otherwise accuse and condemn us. The union of these objective and subjective elements is the glorious peace enjoyed by the children of God. On the objective side, Jesus has done everything for us to win us that reconciliation with God.

Jesus fulfilled the law, not just for himself, but also for us so that our reconciliation means that we stand before God with all of Christ’s law-keeping reckoned to our account. Jesus bore the penalty for our sins on the cross so that he has propitiated the wrath of God and expiated our sins. Jesus imputes both his active and passive obedience to his own. As Calvin put it, “When, however, we come to Christ, we first find in him the exact righteousness of the Law, and this also becomes ours by imputation.” On the subjective side, such serenity or peace is missed, Calvin argues, by two sorts of persons. The first are those whose consciences are still filled with fear and a sense of God’s anger with them as sinners. “No one will stand without fear before God, unless he relies on free reconciliation, for as long as God is judge, all men must be filled with fear and confusion . . . wretched souls are always uneasy, unless they rest in the grace of Christ.” Such people either do not understand the work of Christ in its fullness and completeness or they have not rightly understood the implications of the gospel for themselves. The former are filled with fear because they think they have failed to augment what is lacking in the work of Christ. These people demean Christ, thinking to add their works to his without realizing that such an addition is always a subtraction (like adding a mustache to the Mona Lisa). The latter do not grasp that the full benefit of Christ’s work is theirs by faith alone. They are like hypochondriacs who, although healthy, do not enjoy their healthy state. The second sort, according to Calvin, are those who see no danger for themselves. “This serenity is possessed neither by the Pharisee, who is inflated by a false confidence in his works, nor by a senseless sinner, who, since he is intoxicated with the pleasure of his vices, feels no lack of peace…. Peace with God is opposed to the drunken security of the flesh.” Here again are two kinds of people. The former actually are secure in believing that their works are good enough to gain them some claim on the divine goodness. They utterly fail to know that even our best works are flawed in the sight of God. The latter—perhaps the majority in our world—have no sense at all of any danger from the wrath of God. They are like the dying man who when asked if he had made his peace with God, responded that he did not know they had quarreled. Faith Rightly Understood he only true antidote to either fear or selfsatisfaction is faith. Faith is that trust in Christ and his work, which looks away

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 3 3

from all the valid grounds in ourselves for fear and from all the vain flattery of self-satisfaction. Faith alone looks to Christ alone, and Christ alone justifies those who have faith alone. The tragedy of contemporary evangelical fuzziness on—or betrayal of—the Protestant doctrine of justification should now be clear. Justification is not some irrelevant squabble over technical bits of theology, nor is it a doctrine subordinate to Christian cooperation and activity. The doctrine of justification determines the way in which we understand the gospel we have to preach, the legitimate bounds of cooperation, and the motivation for good works. Where the biblical doctrine of justification is not kept pristine, true peace with God is forfeited. Again we can listen to Calvin as he puts the objective and subjective dimensions of our peace with God together: “We see now how the righteousness of faith is the righteousness of Christ.

When, therefore, we are justified, the efficient cause is the mercy of God, Christ is the substance (materia) of our justification, and the Word, with faith, the instrument. Faith is therefore said to justify, because it is the instrument by which we receive Christ, in whom righteousness is communicated to us.” Here is the true peace that the world needs and that Christ gives. ■

W. Robert Godfrey (Ph.D., Stanford University) is president and professor of church history at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. A member of the Council of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, Dr. Godfrey is a frequent contributor to Modern Reformation and other scholarly journals.

Christ: The End of the Law

nother catchphrase of the New Perspective is “boundary markers.” If Christianity were not about the Law in any fundamental sense, insofar as Judaism presented the Law in more benign terms than Christians thought it did prior to our time, then it was about the Law in a penultimate and less deep-reaching way. The real issue in early Christianity was not the relation between Jews and Christians, but rather the relation between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. This means that the “heat” that is found in Paul’s letters comes from the boundary markers that separate Jewish Christians from Gentile Christians, and specifically three things: Sabbath observance, the dietary rules, and circumcision. These boundary markers are what Paul’s letters, especially Galatians and Romans, are all about—not the Law in some larger or more essential sense. It is no wonder that the New Perspective on Paul gives the impression, as Ernst Käsemann pointed out in 1991, that Christianity is just a variant of Judaism. The idea that Paul was really thinking principally about boundary markers is a very old and familiar idea. This is the concept that there is a distinction between law as the reigning dynamic in religious ceremony and law as regnant within humanity’s moral life. It has always been a point of contention: the meaning and extent of Paul’s words in Romans 10:1–4. The issue has never been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, but it

3 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

resonates in the minds and hearts of those who study Paul. One could argue that the main problem with the New Perspective on Paul is that its proponents have not looked widely and broadly enough in their work. They do not know their theology in historical context. These adherents do not seem to realize that Paul is writing to real people, and that human interactions have not fundamentally altered since the first century. How else can we explain that Paul’s letters still speak to people today? People often come up to me to say what the seventh chapter of Romans, for example, means to them in their daily lives. The experience of working with people must be factored in if we are to understand what Paul is really saying. E. P. Sanders and his adherents know a great deal about one thing (i.e., Second Temple Judaism), but not enough about other things that relate to it. We might say that their knowledge is deep but not broad. It is certainly not broad enough. Because the New Perspective is not rooted in reality, the reality of human experience and the long Christian tradition of engaging with that reality, it will probably suffer the fate of the Soviet Union’s famous “five-year plans.” They came to nothing, because they had disconnected from the reality of real people.

b y PA U L F. M . Z A H L

We Confess… T

herefore, we do not share in the benefit of justification partly because of the grace of God or Christ, and partly because of ourselves, our love, works or merit, but we attribute it wholly to the grace of God in Christ through faith. For our love and our works could not please God if performed by unrighteous men. Therefore, it is necessary for us to be righteous before we may love and do good works. We are made truly righteous, as we have said, by faith in Christ purely by the grace of God, who does not impute to us our sins, but the righteousness of Christ, or rather, he imputes faith in Christ to us for righteousness. Wherefore, in this matter we are not speaking of a fictitious, empty, lazy and dead faith, but of a living, quickening faith. It is and is called a living faith because it apprehends Christ who is life and makes alive, and shows that it is alive by living works. And so James does not contradict anything in this doctrine of ours. For he speaks of an empty, dead faith of which some boasted but who did not have Christ living in them by faith (James 2:14 ff.). James said that works justify, yet without contradicting the apostle (otherwise he would have to be rejected) but showing that Abraham proved his living and justifying faith by works. This all the pious do, but they trust in Christ alone and not in their own works. Helvetic Confession of 1561

ur churches, with common consent, do teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by his death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in his sight (Romans 3 and 4). The Augsburg Confession of 1530

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 any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ’s sake alone; not 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.

II.

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.

III.

Christ, by his obedience and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction of his Father’s justice in their behalf. Yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for any thing in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners. The Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 3 5

An Interview with Father Richard John Neuhaus

Beyond the Impass? MR: Having grown up and then ministered in the Lutheran Church, you undoubtedly learned the importance of the distinction between law and gospel. By converting to Roman Catholicism, did you abandon that piece of Lutheran theology, find it less significant, or see a way to harmonize Lutheran and Roman Catholic theology?

FATHER RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS President Institute on Religion and Public Life Founding Editor First Things

RJN: The classic systematic treatment of the law/gospel way of “rightly dividing the word of truth” is C. F. W. Walther’s Law and Gospel. At least it’s classic in the part of the Lutheran tradition in which I was raised, and it greatly impressed me as a young man. It does not, however, do justice to “the gospel in the Law” and “the Law in the gospel.” That is to say, the way in which Israel and the Church exult in God’s giving the Law, and the way in which the gospel entails a pattern of normative discipleship. A fuller and richer understanding of law and gospel is not distinctively Roman Catholic but is, I believe, in accord with the New Testament, patristic, and medieval witness, and also in accord with some traditions claiming the Reformation heritage. MR: As one of the leaders of the group that wrote “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT), can you speak on where the discussions now stand and what role, if any, the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone plays in those conversations? RJN: Justification is addressed in our statement “The Gift of Salvation,” and that understanding is a crucial dynamic in ECT. MR: “The Gift of Salvation” refers to various areas that need further clarification and exploration. One of those concerns the difference between imputed and infused righteousness in the act of justification. Do you think the difference is crucial to the disagreements between Roman Catholics and Protestants on justification, and do you see ways of cutting through this impasse?

3 6 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

RJN: No, I do not think the difference is crucial, although I know that some Protestants (not most by any means) think it is. “Imputed” and “infused” are not the most clarifying terms, although some Protestants insist upon them. “The Gift of Salvation” accents the difference between dead and living faith. The crucial truth, I would suggest, is that we are justified solely by the righteousness of Christ, a truth with which Catholics readily agree. A living faith issues in personal transformation. The biblical testimony that such transformation (“good works,” if you will) is rewarded is abundant. But such transformation is also the work—the righteousness in action—of Christ. It is never a matter of so much being Christ’s work and so much being my work. It is Christ working in and through us. The good work that God will reward is the work of Christ. He will see the work of Christ both for us and in us. Imputation, if one wished to use that term, is not simply a juridical attribution of Christ’s righteousness but a recognition of Christ and his transforming righteousness in us. In sum, it is solus Christus all the way, recognizing that Christ’s work does not exclude but embraces and transforms the life of the person who receives him by faith. MR: Aside from the criticisms of ECT for doctrinal reasons, have you had much reason to think about other ways that Roman Catholics and Evangelicals may not always see eye to eye? I am thinking especially about the high-church nature of the Catholic Church’s ministry, its understanding of the sacraments and ordination, compared to the low-church orientation of Evangelicalism and its every-member-ministry-

ideal along with its disregard for liturgy. RJN: I really don’t know what all you want me to address here. MR: You have commented in various ways on the tackiness of evangelical piety. It does seem that at least in the formal expressions of the faith, Roman Catholicism through its liturgy and high regard for ordination has more dignity than Evangelicalism with its low-church sensibilities. What barriers do you see to establishing further unity between Catholics and Protestants stemming from the former’s high-church piety and the latter’s low-church orientation? In other words, how do you resolve the differences between the Mass and Praise & Worship? RJN: I really don’t think it’s a matter of liturgical forms—high church or low church, Mass or Praise & Worship. Believe me, there is a lot of tackiness in Catholic liturgy and piety. It is a matter of whether worship is a matter of our getting spiritual highs (or, God forbid, being entertained) and our being sacramentally incorporated into the perfect act of worship, along with “angels, archangels and the whole company of heaven,” which is Christ’s offering of himself to the Father in the power of the Spirit. That perfect act of worship is ever represented in what is aptly called the sacrifice of the Mass. Once again, it is solus Christus all the way. MR: Can you explain for our readers where Protestants now stand in relation to Rome’s teaching? Specifically, do we still stand under the strictures of Trent? And if not, since John Paul II has softened Rome’s position on those not in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome, what reason is there for Protestants to join the Roman Catholic Church? RJN: The Council of Trent names no names. The form is that “If anyone say … Let him be anathema.” Trent is by no means the last word. The Catholic Church has a well-developed understanding of the development of doctrine, i.e., Scripture and living tradition as authoritatively interpreted by the Magesterium. The reason anyone should enter into full communion with the Catholic Church is because he believes it is the course of fuller obedience to Christ and the Church he intended. The Catholic Church is, in my judgment, the Church of Jesus Christ most fully and rightly ordered through time. As the Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) of the Second Vatican Council explains, if one is convinced that the Catholic Church is what she claims to be, then he is in conscience bound to enter and remain in full communion with her. If one is not so convinced, then not.

MR: At a time when the notion of Christian America has come into disrepute, you continue to use the phrase. What does it mean to you, and how does the significance you attach to it differ from some Protestants who by Christian America often mean Protestant America? RJN: Yes, and some think Christian America means evangelical Christian America. I don’t. For reasons I have explained at length in First Things and elsewhere, I believe it is important to understand ours as a Christian society in a cultural-descriptive sense, not in a theological-prescriptive sense, and certainly not in the sense of an elect or redeemer nation, which is the way in which “Christian America” was frequently intended in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Father Neuhaus is president of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York City, and the founding editor of First Things, a monthly journal on religion and public life. He is the author of numerous well-known books, including The Eternal Pity, and Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross. Father Neuhaus was born in Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. He is a minister’s son who left home at age 14. He succeeded in business before becoming a Lutheran minister of a largely black congregation in Brooklyn, N.Y. (1961-78). In the 1960’s, Neuhaus was active in the protest movements and became increasingly conservative. Later, he maintained that the Moral Majority groups were correct in their emphasis, though he disagreed with some of their methods. In 1987 he wrote The Catholic Moment and a few years later converted to Roman Catholicism.

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 3 7

BOOK

| The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation and Evangelism

When the Covenant Obscures Justification

ooks are never written in a vacuum, and the context of both author and audience

tradition—to clarify certain latent tensions that he often determines the interest that a book generates and the reception it receives. In perceives to trouble not only the Christian world the case of Norman Shepherd’s The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation generally, but the Reformed world in particular. He is and Evangelism, the context can hardly be especially concerned about vacillation between ignored. Shepherd was involved in a legalism and antinomianism and between an long-running controversy from the mid- emphasis upon God’s sovereignty and that of 1970s to the early 1980s while he taught human responsibility. In response, Shepherd uses systematic theology at Westminster his idea of the covenant to chart a course between Theological Seminary (Philadelphia). these false dilemmas and thereby to affirm the His fidelity to the confessional Reformed absolute importance both of God’s sovereign, theology that he had pledged to teach unmerited grace and of the obligation of human was called into question, especially beings to respond with obedience to this grace. regarding the doctrines of faith and The first part of the book addresses the doctrine of works, justification and sanctification, salvation and the second part tackles the doctrine and the covenants—no small matters. and practice of evangelism. Central to Shepherd’s Though the controversy, which ended case is his covenantal view of faith, a faith that he with Shepherd’s dismissal from his repeatedly defines as “living,” “obedient,” and professorial post and a tie vote on “active.” Such a faith, he argues, rests solely upon ecclesiastical charges levied against him in his the sovereign grace of God for salvation and also presbytery, is now twenty years old, debate over entails the necessary response of obedience. The almost unavoidable question for those what he allegedly taught has continued to stew in many Reformed circles in America. Intelligent aware of the Shepherd controversy was whether The Call of discussion of the issues, however, has been this book would vindicate him as a Reformed Grace: How hampered by a paucity of written evidence of what theologian or justify his critics instead. Despite the Shepherd really believed. Those interested in the hope that The Call of Grace would provide a clear the Covenant controversy have often despaired of getting to the answer to this question, Shepherd appears to be Illuminates bottom of things. Therefore, the publication of The not terribly concerned to present this work as an Salvation and Call of Grace promised much more than a brief look apologia for his own orthodoxy. Not only is he Evangelism at a few important issues of Christian faith and life. silent on the controversies of previous years, but he by Norman Shepherd It also raised hopes for a window into a nasty also persists in leaving ambiguous many of the controversy whose aftertaste still lingers. important issues that provoked the controversies in P&R Publishing, 2001 As the subtitle indicates, Shepherd attempts to the first place. This ambiguity constitutes a major $8.99, 120 pages, Paperback use the idea of the covenant—an idea that has been difficulty in the book. Of course, it would not be especially important in the Reformed theological fair to demand that Shepherd answer his critics—

3 8 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

an author, after all, should be able to set his or her own agenda. However, the very subtitle of this work, “How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation and Evangelism,” promises illumination of the doctrine of salvation, the very doctrine that caused Shepherd’s troubles. He, then, implicitly promises clarification of his views on these important matters; the ambiguous material that he has produced, however, lends itself more to obfuscation than clarification. Shepherd’s repeated claim that faith must be “living,” “obedient,” and “active” lies at the heart of the ambiguity. The theologies of the Reformation insisted that faith indeed must be living but at the same time carefully distinguished it from obedience and good works. Faith was extraspective, a trust that looked outside of oneself and rested upon the good works of Christ that earned our salvation. Obedience consisted of the good works that one produced oneself, flowing from faith and only by God’s grace. By faith we are saved; by obedience we are not. This distinction between faith on the one hand and obedience and good works on the other was not a human invention, but was jealously guarded by the Apostle Paul (e.g., Rom. 3:28, 4:5; Gal. 2:16; Eph. 2:8–9). Is this what Shepherd affirms when he speaks of an active, obedient, living faith? A phrase like “obedient faith” could refer simply to a faith that is always accompanied by obedience, and this would be wholly consistent with the theology of the Reformed and Lutheran traditions. However, could it not also refer to a faith that is itself obedience, or, to put it another way, to a faith that is conceived in such broad terms that it consists not only of a humble resting upon Christ and his work for salvation, but also of our obedience and good works that God demands of those who are in covenant with him? Shepherd never carefully defines what he means. Has he overturned the Reformation understanding of salvation by retaining the orthodox language (“by faith alone”) while making good works an essential aspect of what faith is? If so, then if one wishes both to follow Shepherd and to use the word “faith” as it has been traditionally understood, one must affirm that we are saved by faith and works together. There is even stronger evidence that when Shepherd says we are saved by a living and obedient faith, he means a different kind of faith from that of the Reformation tradition. He says that Christ himself has “living and active faith.” Christ’s faith, then, becomes the model for our own faith. What could be objectionable about this? Consider a standard Reformation definition of faith found in the Westminster Confession of Faith (XIV.2):

“The principal acts of saving faith are, accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life.” Of course, it is nonsense to say that Christ accepted, received, and rested upon Christ for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. Christ did not need a mediator in whom to put his faith—he is the mediator. Therefore, when Shepherd refers to Christ himself as exhibiting the living and obedient faith that we are to emulate and by which we are saved, he obviously has a kind of “faith” in mind that is different from the “faith” of the confessional statements of the Reformation. The implications? We are saved by a faith whose principal acts are not accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ. Traditionally (and biblically), we affirm salvation to be by Christ’s works (as the ground of justification) and through our faith (as the instrument or means of justification). In Shepherd’s treatment, works and faith are bundled together, displayed first in Christ and then imitated by us. Does the author really intend to diverge from the tradition and attempt something new? If not, he should clarify his views and express his fidelity to the common formulations of doctrine, especially in light of the quarter century of accusations against him. On the other hand, if he does intend to be so different, is it unreasonable to expect a forthright admission of his differences? It is his own tradition, and the tradition of most of his readers. Certainly one’s spiritual heritage deserves a fair, honest, and respectful treatment. If one is to depart from his tradition and encourage his readers to do the same, one ought to have mastered that tradition first and be clear about the grounds for disagreement. However, on the one point of traditional Reformed doctrine at which Shepherd’s disagreement is explicit (the idea of the covenant of works, especially in regard to the Mosaic covenant), and on the one occasion when he briefly interacts with a specific Reformed theologian (Charles Hodge), Shepherd caricatures the tradition. The Reformed tradition has held consistently that the Old Testament saints were saved by grace alone, by faith alone, by Christ alone. Some Reformed theologians have indeed spoken of the covenant of works (originally established with Adam) as being “republished” in the Mosaic covenant. But this republication served only the interests of the gospel. Negatively, it demonstrated to people their complete inability to satisfy the demands of God’s Law by their own works. Positively, it pointed them to Jesus Christ, who could and would satisfy the demands of God’s law in their place and reap for them all of the

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 3 9

blessings promised upon obedience. At one point in the book, Shepherd appears to understand this historical fact. Nevertheless, he goes on to refute a phantom Reformed doctrine, namely, that the idea of the republication of the covenant of works in the Mosaic covenant taught an alternative way of salvation, a salvation by one’s own works. Not a

be informative to know if he would agree. Perhaps Shepherd taught a precursor to the New Perspective before the New Perspective as such was unveiled, but failed to receive proper credit for it. In one sense, of course, Shepherd is correct: Covenant theology does illuminate salvation (and evangelism). The Reformed doctrine of the covenant of works and covenant of grace—in all its hepherd’s repeated claim that faith must be “living,” “obedient,” and “active” lies at nuances—supported and enriched the biblical distincthe heart of the ambiguity. tions between law and gospel and between faith and works. These distinctions have difficult target for Shepherd’s polemics, to be sure. illuminated the hearts and gladdened the souls of But the Reformed tradition certainly has not taught countless Christians in the Reformation and any doctrine of the kind. beyond. Shepherd’s covenant theology, with its The author’s rude handling of his own tradition persistent ambiguities, does not brighten this light, raises questions about how he views other and, therefore, his book cannot be recommended. Christian traditions. Given the historical battles of the last half millennium, his perspective on the David VanDrunen Roman Catholic understanding of salvation is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and undoubtedly of interest. In the book’s opening Christian Ethics pages, Shepherd refers to the important debates of Westminster Theological Seminary in California the past decade engendered by “Evangelicals and Escondido, California Catholics Together” (ECT). He displays his own ecumenical interests when stating that a covenantal approach (such as his own) to issues of salvation offers a “glimmer of hope” for reconciling Protestants and Roman Catholics. He suggests that his own approach is a kind of meeting ground by Mark A. Seifrid between Evangelicals and Catholics, neither of Inter Varsity Press, 2000 whom talk much, if at all, about the importance of $19.99 (paper), 222 pages the covenant for one’s understanding of salvation. Readers of Modern However, the problem, again, is that Shepherd wants to “illuminate” salvation without dealing with Reformation certainly specifics. After raising the specter of ECT at the will be interested in book’s beginning, he states abruptly that he won’t any book that sets discuss the “nuances” of the arguments that have forth Paul’s doctrine been made in its wake. What could be more of justification and important, however, than the nuances? Grace, its relationship to the faith, Christ, good works—all of the parties, Law of God. This is Catholic as well as Protestant, affirm them. The especially true when differences are in the details. Questions such as the such a study is precise nature of saving faith and its relationship conducted in light of with good works may indeed be nuances, but they the challenges raised are nuances upon which people have staked their to traditional Protestant formulations eternal destinies and have offered up their lives. this critical To note one other point very briefly, of interestingly Shepherd does not interact with the doctrine by proponents of the so-called New recent, and very influential, New Perspective on Perspective on Paul, proponents such as E. P. Paul. In a book that seems to be written more for a Sanders and James D. G. Dunn. Christ Our Righteousness by Mark Seifrid is such a popular than scholarly audience, this perhaps does not deserve much criticism. His views appear to book. Associate professor of New Testament at the this reviewer, however, to resemble the New Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Seifrid is Perspective in some important ways, and it would among a group of evangelical scholars widely

Christ Our Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Justification

4 0 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

hailed for their substantial contributions to Pauline studies. Seifrid has already written a substantial volume on Paul, Justification by Faith: The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (E. J. Brill, 1992), and an important essay on the subject of Romans 7:14–25 in Novum Testamentum (Vol. 34, 1992). He is the author of an insightful review of The Gift of Salvation which originally appeared in First Things (1997) as the fruit on the ongoing Evangelical–Roman Catholic discussion about the nature of the gospel (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Vol. 42). When someone with Seifrid’s pedigree weighs in on Paul, justification, and the Law, it is important to take notice. Christ Our Righteousness is a more accessible version of Seifrid’s earlier book, Justification by Faith. Although Christ Our Righteousness includes several additional topics it remains focused on current reflection upon Paul’s understanding of justification and the Law, following the trajectory set by Adolf Schlatter, Ernst Käsemann, and Peter Stuhlmacher. As D. A. Carson points out in the book’s forward, Christ Our Righteousness has a “prophetic quality to it,” and Seifrid is “no slave to mere traditionalism. He does not hesitate to amend traditional formulations that he judges inadequate.” This is both the strength and the weakness of the book. The author tackles a number of exegetical issues facing the interpreter of Paul. Before summarizing some of these, let me say that Christ Our Righteousness is another reminder that historic Protestants need not abandon the orthodox doctrine of justification sola fide. According to the New Perspective, Paul’s gospel should be understood as follows: A person enters the covenant through election, but he or she remains in the covenant through obedience (covenantal nomism). As several writers have pointed out, this approaches a bald Pelagianism. On the other hand, Seifrid’s straightforward reading of Paul demonstrates that the Sanders-Dunn interpretation of Jewish and Christian sources is highly idiosyncratic and very selective in referencing critical Pauline texts. Seifrid’s book is a robust critique of the New Perspective, simply by giving us a more plausible reading of Paul. Seifrid and others have also succeeded in demonstrating that the all-too common assumption that it was Martin Luther’s guilt-ridden conscience which sidetracked Pauline studies into a four hundred and fifty year dead end, is unfounded. It was Westerholm who stated that anyone who did not think there was something to be learned about the exegesis of Paul from Martin Luther ought to take up a career in metallurgy. Seifrid bolsters that case by demonstrating at several

disputed points that Luther’s exegesis does indeed breathe forth the spirit of Paul. In the opening chapter, “The Conversion of Paul,” Seifrid defends the thesis that Paul’s conversion is best explained by not conducting a psychological evaluation of Paul or through identifying nationalistic factors that supposedly led to Paul’s role in the founding of Christianity. Instead, says Seifrid, we must trace Paul’s conversion to “an unconditioned act of mercy, to which Paul brought no preparation but his own sins.” Seifrid rejects the Bultmannian interpretation, which argues that Paul’s rejection of “works of Law” stems from the failure of the ego to trust in God, whereas the Apostle’s stress on faith in Christ arises from humanity’s existential need for utter dependence upon God. In Chapter 2, “The Righteousness of God: The Message of Romans,” Seifrid sets forth his main thesis that the righteousness of God, which is revealed in the gospel and apprehended by faith (defined as “submission to the promise God fulfilled in the gospel”), must be seen against the background of the Old Testament, where God’s righteousness “involves not only his vindication against his enemies, but also his bringing salvation.” The balance of the chapter contains Seifrid’s very insightful exegesis of Romans 1:17–8:32. Echoing traditional Protestant formulations, Seifrid argues that “the divine reckoning alone makes us righteous, not by transforming us, but by re-creating our persons in God’s sight.” Chapter 3 contains a brief survey of Paul’s teaching on justification in the other epistles traditionally assigned to him (“Beyond Romans: Justification by Faith in the Letters of Paul”). Throughout these letters, Paul’s “language varies according to the occasion of his writing, but the underlying structure of his thought remains constant. In Christ’s death, God has passed judgment upon sin and has brought his contention with fallen humanity to its end. In Christ’s resurrection, God has granted righteousness and life to those who believe.” In Chapter 4, “The Law of God”, Seifrid takes up the subject of the righteousness of God in relationship to the Law. The Law is that which “was given through Moses to Israel, announces the demands of God for life in the present, fallen world in written words, which offer life and blessing on the condition of obedience, but death and curse for disobedience. Those who know the Law shall be judged by it” (p. 96). When dealing with Galatians 2:16, one of the most disputed and important texts in current Pauline studies, Seifrid rejects the view of Dunn that Paul’s phrase “works

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 4 1

of the law” refers to ethnic boundary markers that divided Jew from Gentile. According to Seifrid, it is vital to notice that “Paul consistently views the Law in relation to God’s justifying work in Christ. He knows only of one, indivisible Law of God, and provides no ground for the traditional bifurcation of the Law into moral and ceremonial law.” This statement may raise a few eyebrows, and Seifrid’s case is an interesting one. Indeed, “the whole Law bears witness to Christ. The whole law therefore now stands like John the Baptist in the presence of Christ. It has to yield to the greater one who has arrived.” In Chapter 5, “Justification and the Obedience of

their “Christ-centered view of justification”) and their Protestant scholastic descendants, who, it is argued, took the biblical insights of the reformers and codified them into the rationalistic formulations typical of the Protestant orthodoxy of the seventeenth century. The latter, supposedly, focus not upon Christ, but on the justification of the individual believer. In adopting the reformers versus the Protestant orthodox thesis, Seifrid exposes an important weakness of the contemporary theological enterprise; namely the eclipse of dogmatic (systematic) theology at the hands of biblical theology. This is highly problematic for a number of reasons. For one thing, it creates a climate where the eifrid’s book is a robust critique of the New Perspective, simply by giving us a myth of the magisterial reformers versus the more plausible reading of Paul. Protestant orthodox can be easily perpetuated. For another, biblical theologians Faith,” Seifrid addresses the question of the no longer view themselves confined by traditional relationship between faith and obedience. Once theological formulations. Possessing a liberty that again, there is much here that historical Protestants systematic theologians do not have, biblical will find of interest. Faith is defined as “directed to theologians often see themselves as functioning God’s promise to Abraham which has come to closer to the text of Scripture than dogmaticians. fulfillment in Christ.” Faith is God’s work in the Therefore, they do not feel constrained by prior human being through the gospel. It represents the theological reflection. new creation, which is called into existence by God’s But dogmatic theology has an important word. Faith is God’s effectual work in the human theological task as well, providing coherent heart and “regards the recognition that the gospel theological models for the instruction and which is its object is also its source.” The well-known edification of the Church, and to defend the Church distinction between the indicative and imperative is against error. As traditionally conceived, the essential to Paul and has its basis in faith. systematic theologian did his work using the data In Chapter 6, “The Justification of Ungodly supplied by biblical scholars. The two disciplines Israel and the Nations,” Seifrid discusses Romans were understood as being complementary, with the 9–11 and the relationship between Israel and the biblical theologian asking new questions of the text Gentiles throughout redemptive history. Seifrid and warning systematicians of traditionalism, which concludes that whereas Israel is presently under is the bane of dogmatic theology. But in the present condemnation because of unbelief, the presence of theological climate, even those biblical scholars who a believing remnant becomes the “outward sign and take the authority of Scripture very seriously feel visible promise of the [eschatological] justification quite free to cross traditional boundaries and to of the ungodly nation.” Israel has come under God’s make provocative statements about matters judgment so that it can be created anew. “The dogmatic theologians have long regarded as eschatological Israel, which will be created by the essential to the gospel. Despite the need to listen fulfillment of the promise, will believe in the constantly to the text of Scripture for new exegetical crucified and risen Christ.” Therefore, Seifrid insights, there are, after all, some rather pointed concludes, “the continuing remnant, which is truly warnings in Paul about “another gospel, which is no a miracle of God . . . is a sign of salvation which is gospel at all” (Galatians 1:6–9). yet to come for Israel.” This divide between biblical and dogmatic However, Christ Our Righteousness ends on a theology can be seen when Seifrid makes several disappointing note. In the final chapter provocative comments in his closing chapter. “Justification in Paul, The New Testament Witness Although he is perfectly clear that justification is a and Beyond,” Seifrid adopts the discredited thesis forensic declaration that is never presented as a that a doctrinal disconnect of sorts exists between process in which the believer is made new, he the magisterial reformers (Luther and Calvin with nevertheless concludes that “it is worth observing that

4 2 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G

Paul never speaks of Christ’s righteousness as imputed to believers, as became standard in Protestantism.” Seifrid points out that Paul does indeed speak of imputation in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6, and ties Christ’s righteousness to his resurrection and our participation in it through faith. But what does Paul say about Christ’s righteousness and the believer’s relationship to that righteousness in texts such as Romans 5:12–21, Philippians 3:9, and 2 Corinthians 5:21? How can we be righteous through another’s obedience? What does Paul mean by a righteousness not his own, but a righteousness which comes from God and is by faith? What does Paul mean when he speaks of being in Christ, and therefore, becoming the righteousness of God? Seifrid does not clearly say. Indeed, we must ask the question, Can we separate Christ’s resurrection from his obedience to the Law of God? Seifrid made this very point when discussing Romans 5:21: “the obedience of the one has secured life eternal for the many.” Furthermore, Seifrid contends that “it is not so much wrong to use the expression ‘the imputed righteousness of Christ,’ it is deficient. Paul after all, speaks of the forgiveness of sins, of reconciliation to God, the gift of the Spirit, ‘salvation’ and so on.” But where do the Protestant orthodox ever neglect the reality of forgiveness, reconciliation, the gift of the Spirit, or salvation, because they stress the importance of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, especially in contexts where the forensic and declaratory nature of justification is disputed? In Protestant orthodoxy, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is but one aspect—albeit a very important aspect— of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ and never negates those other vital aspects of the ordo salutis, which Seifrid seeks to preserve. Christ Our Righteousness offers much exegetical insight into the letters of Paul. Seifrid reminds us that justification is at the very heart of Paul’s theology and that we cannot be justified by “works of law.” But this otherwise fine volume is marred by the author’s unjustified assumption that the Protestant orthodox failed to grasp the Apostle’s teaching about justification, especially in regard to the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Seifrid’s purpose would be much better served had he sought to work with the dogmaticians, instead of against them. Kim Riddlebarger Senior Pastor at Christ Reformed Church (URC) Anaheim, California

SPEAKING OF

ermeneutics is inevitable, not because the biblical texts are unclear but because the aims and interests of the interpreter often are. One’s readings … are always governed by certain assumptions: about the kind of text one is reading, about the extent of its coherence or unity, about its relationship to other texts, about whether it is a human word only or also the word of God. — Kevin J. Vanhoozer

hose with a high view of Scripture insist that what gives the canonical documents their unity is that, for all their enormous diversity, one Mind, one Actor, stands behind them; they constitute a truly revelatory base. . . . [This] is a unity of substance in the source documents themselves. The efforts of ‘whole-Bible’ biblical theology may sometimes be thwarted by the complexities of the task, and sometimes mocked by inadequate work, but they are not intrinsically doomed to frustration; there is an intrinsic unity that is to be pursued and explored. — D. A. Carson

his is not the fitting way to understand or to interpret Holy Writ: to draw different statements from different places without in the least taking into account the context or their relation to other passages. In fact, this is the commonest way to err in Holy Writ. Therefore if a theologian does not want to err, he must have all Scripture before his eyes, must compare apparently contradictory passages and, like the two cherubim facing each other from opposite sides, must find the agreement of the difference in the middle of the mercy seat. — Martin Luther

he factors that make a theologian are: (1) the grace of the Spirit, (2) temptation, (3) experience, (4) opportunity, (5) sedulous reading, and (6) a knowledge of the useful arts. — Martin Luther

M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 2 | M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N 4 3

O R U M I N A T I O N S

N F R O M

A L L I A N C E

Y O F

C O N F E S S I N G

E V A N G E L I C A L S

N C O U N C I L

D M E M B E R S

W. Robert Godfrey

Nothing But a Constant Death

he following prayer, a part of the Dutch Reformed liturgy for the baptism of children

exclusively grim or bleak but will be marked by joy and since the sixteenth century, has several interesting elements worth considering. ardent love for the savior. It also underscores that those O almighty, eternal God…look upon these who trust Christ may be comforted in facing death Thy children and incorporate them by Thy to know that they will appear before Christ without Holy Spirit into Thy Son Jesus Christ, that fear. Leaving this life will be eased for them as they they may be buried with Him through know that this life is nothing but a constant death. baptism into death and be raised with Him The prayer is expressing that this life is a constant in newness of life; that they, daily following death in comparison with the blessing of pure Him, may joyfully bear their cross, cleaving fellowship with Christ in the world to come. unto Him in true faith, firm hope, and ardent Still, we must ask if even this comparative sense love; that they, being comforted in Thee, of the words, “nothing but a constant death” is too may leave this life, which is nothing but a strong to represent biblical religion. We live in a constant death, and at the last day may religious environment where many make W. ROBERT appear without terror before the judgment happiness, joy, and self-fulfillment to be the GODFREY essence of Christianity. So are these new emphases seat of Christ Thy Son…. more biblical than this prayer from the sixteenth As a minister who has often offered this prayer, century? President and Professor If we reflect on the biblical revelation, we do see the most arresting words for me have always been of Church History “this life, which is nothing but a constant death.” the centrality of joy for the Christian life. But in Westminster Theological Seminary Do those words express a grim Calvinism that is the Bible that joy is never divorced from our daily in California out of touch both with modern American attitudes duty to bear the cross. Now we do face the daily and, much more importantly, with genuine biblical struggle against our own sin and the forces of religion? Is this life really “nothing but a constant wickedness in this world (Gal. 5:16–17; Rom. death”? 7:14–25; Eph. 6:10–13). We are still very much a To answer this question we first have to reflect part of this world so that we groan with it awaiting on these words in the context of the prayer. This the appearance of the new heaven and the new context reminds us that the God who has come earth (Rom. 8:22–23). and will come in judgment against sin is for the In Psalm 88, we read, “I am set apart with the sake of Jesus the savior of his people. Baptism is dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you the sign and seal of mercy for those in Christ. This remember no more, who are cut off from your care” baptismal prayer asks that the Lord will bring the (v. 5). Do not all of us feel this way at times? Yet full blessing of baptism into the lives of those where in most of our Church life is there room for baptized; namely, that they would be so those who feel as this psalmist did? incorporated into Christ that they would share in The reality that this life is nothing but a constant three effects of his work: First, that they would be death is not the only thing that Christians have to buried with him and raised with him; second, that say about our present existence. But it is a true word they would faithfully follow him all the days of and a necessary word in our world—a world more their lives; and third, that they would leave this life eager to deny the reality of sin, sickness, and death to enjoy eternal life with Christ. The prayer makes than it is to face reality and to find the grace of clear that our daily lives in this world are not Christ sufficient for life and for death.

4 4 W W W. M O D E R N R E F O R M AT I O N . O R G