. . . why can’t innocence “cause” moral renovation?
Article 9 of the French Confession of Faith (in which Calvin played a large role) affirms: “We believe that man was created pure and perfect in the image of God, and that by his own guilt he fell from the grace which he received, and is thus alienated from God, the fountain of justice and of all good, so that his nature it totally corrupt.”
This assertion, which implies the priority of the forensic to moral degeneracy, only makes sense of the idea that man was created with a good and upright nature. If Adam’s guilt proceeded from corruption then his original nature could not be perfect and pure.
So why is it a problem to talk about a similar relationship between the forensic and the renovative in the remedy for sin, namely, salvation? Why is it wrong to assert that the removal of guilt, the declaration of innocence, causes or results in the removal of corruption?
Of course, the language of causality is a bit rough and simplistic — but no more rough or simplistic as saying that union with Christ “causes” justification and sanctification. Actually, in a monergistic scheme, God is the cause of every part of salvation. But in trying to discern the relationship among the aspects of salvation, asserting the priority of the forensic to the renovative does not appear to be an obvious problem or error. It would seem actually to follow symmetrically from the doctrine of the fall.
This would seem to be the point of the Belgic Confession, Article 24, which says that without justifying faith, men “would never do anything out of love to God.” It also asserts: “For it is by faith in Christ that we are justified, even before we do good works, otherwise they could not be good works any more than the fruit of a tree can be good before the tree itself is good.”
(Disclaimer: this post is not necessarily the view of the NTJ or its editors. What are blogs for?)
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Jeff, not to be too literal, but the phrase “sanctifying faith” to my knowledge does not appear in the Reformed creeds and catechisms. The phrase “justifying faith” does regularly. That may not mean anything. But it may.
I’m not trying to infer that sanctification is unrelated to saving faith. I am simply trying to note that when the phrase “justifying faith” is used in connection with good works, it is generally the case that JF produces good works. So again, it seems in the ballpark (at least my home park) to consider the forensic as prior to and a parent to moral renovation.
Hey Camden,
I see your point. I think it is an important one, but I’m not sure it is always the case that “If you die, you haven’t simply made a transaction – you’re transformed to a new condition.”
I’ve always thought that this was the case, but what about if you’ve “died to [the law]…so that you may belong to another” and “are released from the law” (Rom. 7.4-6). You can also see this in Paul’s language in Gal. 2 that He “through the law died to the law, so that he might live to God”.
I’m not an expert on the history of interpretation of these passages, but it does lend credence, at least, to the idea that “dying to the law” is forensically charged language dealing with a person’s relationship to the law as foundation for sanctification, or “new life”. They are not unconnected, it seems to me, in Paul’s argument for holy living in light of the being “released from the law”.
Now, maybe, the question is whether one includes these passages as part of Paul’s teaching on “definitive sanctification” that begins the progressive OR the forensic context that makes sanctification, definitive or progressive, logically inevitable. These are some important questions.
James
Hey Nicholas,
I’ve been chewing on your words for sometime and wrestled with it myself. I don’t know if this will shed any light, but it helped me to think about the issue. Here is a very helpful way of looking at the priority of the forensic to the transformative from A.A. Hodge on the ordo salutis:
“The imputation of the guilt (just liability to punishment) of Adam’s apostatizing act to his whole race in common leads judicially to the spiritual desertion of each new-born soul in particular, and spiritual desertion involves inherent depravity as a necessary and universal consequence. In like manner the imputation of our sins in common to Christ lead to his spiritual desertion (Matt. 27:46), but his temporary desertion as a man by the Holy Ghost lead in his case to no tendency however remote to inherent or actual sin, because he was the God-man. [By consequence, the imputation of Christ's righteous to us is the necessary precondition of the restoration to us of the influences of the Holy Ghost, and that restoration leads by necessary consequence to our regeneration and sanctification.]”
I guess you have to consider the ramifications and relationships of the two-fold effects of Adam’s sin to the human race that sets the stage, at least, for some kind of priority for the two-fold benefits of the second Adam for the salvation of the elect. This helped clear things for me, at least.
If the imputation of Adam’s sin is the basis for our subsequent pollution and enslavement to sin, then it would seem, possible, that the imputation of Christ’s sin would be the basis for our sanctification, whether that be definitive or progressive. It would be interesting for me to go back and read if Prof. Murray sees the same relationship in “The Imputation of Adam’s Sin”.
James
Oops! Forgive my careless typing. I meant “Christ’s Righteousness” in the last paragraph. Can someone amend that post? I shouldn’t post when I’m this tired. My apologies
Tim, please be so kind as to send to my email (or post in this blog), the reference to D.A. Carson’s understanding of the Greek preposition “en” as also meaning “for”. I’m currently researching this meaning in other Pauline uses of the same preposition. In fact, it is found in Galatians 2:20 twice, with the same instrumental meaning of “for, or by”. “Christ lives FOR me”; and “the life that I now live, I live by (“en”) in the Son of God”. So it would be helpful to have Carson’s reference.
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