114 thoughts on “Seriously?”

1. Darryl, isn’t that a quote from Machen’s “The Doctrine of the Atonement?” I think I remember reading that Machen died shortly after giving the third of the three teachings that comprise that book. What a blessing that his focus was on the fullness of what God did for him through Jesus’ perfect obedience in life and his full satisfaction for sins in death. Can’t get much more personal – Jesus Christ died on the cross for us.

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2. This false dichotomy of “persons” vs the “merits of a person” is par for the course for many “unionists” ( like Bill Evans and Garcia and Michael Bird) They accuse those of us with an “imputation priority” with loving Christ’s work more than His person. Of course we answer that , if you don’t know what Christ’s work was, then you don’t know Christ the person.

   They also accuse of loving the benefits we get from Christ more than we love Christ the person.. These accusers say that the solution is to put “union” with the person (the Benefactor who blesses) before the receiving of the blessings. But in their solution, they themselves prioritize faith in Christ before “union”. The presence of faith in us, we are told, is the indwelling of Christ in us.

   Gaffin—-In the matter of sanctification, it seems to me, we must confront a tendency, within churches of the Reformation to view the gospel and salvation in its outcome almost exclusively in terms of justification…. Sometimes there is even the suggestion that while sanctification is highly desirable, and its lack, certainly unbecoming and inappropriate, it is not really necessary in the life of the believer, not really integral to our salvation and an essential part of what it means to be saved from sin… Surely our gratitude is important. How could we be anything but grateful for the free forgiveness of our sins? That note of gratitude, whether or not explicit, is pervasive and unmistakable in Paul . No doubt, too, all of our efforts as believers are, at best, imperfect and flawed by our continuing to sin. BUT Paul sounds a different, much more radical note about sanctification and the good works of Christians.

   Gaffin: Regeneration brings into view not only a specific divine activity (effectual calling) but the specific result of that activity; the state of being regenerate. Having been called effectively involves having been regenerated, but the two are not identical. The exercise of the Spirit’s energies in calling produces an enduring change within sinners distinct from that exercise. The result is a permanent “new creation” marked, anthropologically, by a lasting disposition inherent in them, what Scripture calls a new “heart.” That is, at the core of my being, I am no longer against God and disposed to rebel against his will but, now and forever, for him and I delight in doing his will.

   Gaffin: The Holy Spirit’s work in the justified does not merely consist of an ongoing countering activity within those otherwise only disposed to be thoroughly resistant . The definitive, nothing less than eschatological death-to-life change EFFECTED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT provides a stable basis within them for his continuing day-by-day activity of renewing and maturing them according to their inner selves (2 Cor. 4:16), for his continuing toward completion the good work begun in them (Phil. 1:6). The Reformed use of “habitual” to describe this irreversible change, this radical dispositional reorientation, in believers seems appropriate.

   mark: of course, Gaffin explains, in terms of redemptive history, the person of Christ in us is the person of the Holy Spirit in us.

   (By Faith Not By Sight) Gaffin : “Typically in the Reformation tradition the hope of salvation is expressed in terms of Christ’s righteousness, especially as imputed to the believer…however, I have to wonder if ‘Christ in you’ is not more prominent as an expression of evangelical hope…” p 110

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3. Just to be clear, I am not saying that Gaffin agrees with Norman Shepherd or Leithart about either “active obedience” or about imputation. Gaffin continues to say many good and right things about imputation. For example, on p 51 in By Faith, Not By Sight) , Gaffin lists 3 options for the ground of justification. A. Christ’s own righteousness, complete and finished in his obedience…B. the union itself, the fact of the relationship with Christ…c. the obedience being produced by the transforming Spirit in those in union. Gaffin rightly concludes that “the current readiness to dispense with imputation” results from taking the last two options as the ground of justification.

   Of course the pietist impulse to play off the person of Christ against doctrines about Christ’s person and work is not anything new. But Gaffin always hasa not yet,a complex “gray”

   Though we are justified now (because faith in something, even Arminianism, he thinks unites us now to Jesus), Gaffin still teaches a justification by sight, ie by works. Instead of reading the “according to works” texts as having to do with the distinction between dead works (Hebrews 6:1,9:14) and “fruit for God” (Romans 7:4), Gaffin conditions assurance in future justification on imperfect but habitual working. Instead of saying that works motivated by fear of missing justification are unacceptable to God, Gaffin (like Edwards) teaches a future justification which is contingent on the fittingness of our works of faith (though he denies these to be the “ground’).

   I recommend the reading of By Faith, not By Sight, so that critics of Gaffin will NOT make the mistake of identifying Gaffin with N.T. Wright who DENIES imputation. I also agree with Gaffin that the gospel is not only about what Christ did outside of the elect for the elect. The gospel is also about the effectual call which results from election in Christ and Christ’s work for those elect in Him

   One evidence of effectual calling is that the justified elect do not put their assurance in their “bearing fruit for God”. To work for assurance of future justification is to “bear fruit for death”. Romans 7:5

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4. Mr. McCulley,
   Are you able to point out any places in my publications where I have “dichotomized” person vs. merit, or said any of the things of which you have accused me in your comment? I can assure you I have said none of those things, nor would I. Quite to the contrary, I have published a strong defense of imputation and of merit that proceeds along exactly the opposite lines you have suggested I take: I have argued that the Reformed doctrine of imputation and of merit is preserved rather than eclipsed by a proper emphasis on Christ’s person and on union with him by the Spirit through faith.
   Mark A. Garcia

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5. Mr McCulley,
   Like Dr. Garcia, I’m a bit mystified by your assertion that I have proposed a “false dichotomy of ‘persons’ vs the ‘merits of a person’ along the lines of what Pete Leithart has apparently suggested. Suffice it to say that I affirm the imputation of the original sin of Adam to his posterity, and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ (both active and passive) to those united with him. My record on this is clear, and I would echo Mark Garcia’s closing statement above.
   Bill Evans

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6. I don’t know if that was actually Machen’s dying thought. But leave that to the side. I can see the point, but I can’t help but find this disturbing on two grounds….

   Reading between the lines, I’m seeing “I, Peter Leithart, do not belong in Machen’s church”. Agreed! But too bad that’s not quite enough to boot him out of the PCA…

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7. They accuse those of us with an “imputation priority” with loving Christ’s work more than His person. Of course we answer that , if you don’t know what Christ’s work was, then you don’t know Christ the person.

   Notwithstanding whether Garcia or Evans or any particular person does indeed advocate a person/merit dichotomy, I would also respond to this by noting that we cannot know Christ’s person in the ordinary way we can know a non-divine human person; we are not mystics, we do not walk and talk with Christ in the garden; what he has given us to know him are the means of grace; his Words, audible and visible. So in that sense, we don’t really know him any more than we know what those words say about him (and his works).

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8. :

   What was the Reformation about? Following David Yeago and others, I argue that it was centrally about idolatry, and that the Reformers’ response to idolatry was centrally about Christology and sacramental theology.

   Seriously? This explains how this dude can even call himself Reformed with a straight face; by defining the term ‘Reformed’ differently than everybody else.

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9. And here I wanted us to think about Tipton’s lecture published in the latest Westminster Journal, which is mostly an objection to Berkhof. This topic can be complex, but Tipton attempts to simplify it by focusing on ideas of “eternal objective” justification vs his own view of “union by faith by the Spirit”, ie, union with the Person in priority to justification as union with the Benefits. But this ignores other ways to talk about justification (for example, Mike Horton’s exploration of union by imputation, resulting in regeneration and faith, see Horton’s reading of McCormack in Covenant Union).

   Berkhof —“It is sometimes said that the merits of Christ cannot be imputed to us as long as we are not in Christ, since it is only on the basis of our oneness with Him that such an imputation could be reasonable. But this view fails to distinguish between our legal unity with Christ and our spiritual oneness with Him, and is a falsification of the fundamental element in the doctrine of redemption, namely, of the doctrine of justification. “

   Berkhof: “Justification is always a declaration of God, not on the basis of an existing (or future) condition, but on that of a gracious imputation–a declaration which is not in harmony with the existing condition of the sinner. The judicial ground for all the grace which we receive lies in the fact that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to us.” (systematic, 452)

   Two dichotomies tend to go together. First, union with Christ’s person prior to imputation. Second, a focus on the Christian person as he is in his “created graces” as opposed to a focus (first and last) on the alien righteousness. Of course I agree that Evans and Garcia and Gaffin have NOT denied imputation as Mark Seifrid or Michael Bird or Don Garlington have done.

   What the “Gaffin school” has proposed is that justification is both now and not yet, not only in terms of the way they read Romans 2 but also in terms of “union” with the the present person of Christ, which they see as resulting not only an alien righteousness but also (by the end) an imparted and infused righteousness. Thus the second dichotomy (the reverse of Berkhof) , not “merely” the alien righteousness but also what Christians as persons will become before that last day. We don’t need to revisit Edwards here, but I would recommend Fesko’s chapter on the last day in his big book on justification. If either Garcia or Evans has responded to Fesko (or to McGowan’s discussion of the debate), I would be glad to read and comment.

   Some of us are suspicious of any gospel which makes its “reality” to be ultimately about what God does in us, in the new birth or habitually. Say what you want about our new ‘faith disposition”, we know we are still sinners. But the “unionists” are suspicious of any gospel which puts all the emphasis on gratitude for Christ’s work outside us for us.

   I do not want to discount the wonderful news that God gives the elect a new heart to understand and to keep believing the gospel. Regeneration assures us that the justified, despite their continuing sins, will never stop believing the gospel . “I John 3:9, “No one born of God sins, because God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God.”

   And at least some “unionists” do not want to discount or deny the need for “active obedience”.
   When I deny that it’s the Holy Spirit who gives us Christ, I am saying that Christ gives us the Holy Spirit. But I am NOT denying that Christ gives the Holy Spirit or that the Holy Spirit gives the elect person a new heart.

   Once more, here’s the famous quotation from Calvin (3:11:10): “I confess that we are deprived of justification until Christ is made ours. Therefore, that joining together of Head and members, that indwelling of Christ in our hearts—in short, that mystical union—are accorded by us the highest degree of importance, so that Christ, having been made ours, makes us sharers with him in the gifts with which he has been endowed.. We do not, therefore, contemplate him outside ourselves from afar in order that His righteousness may be imputed to us but because we put on Christ and are engrafted into His body—in short because he deigns to make us one with Him.”

   The unionists use this quotation often, as that which trumps anything else written by Calvin, or at least as the key for understanding everything written by Calvin. I agree with McCormack (against Torrance) that this one quotation is not nearly the whole story. (Some of you have no doubt read Wenger on the history of the debate about the order of topic in the Institutes—not being “Reformed” lets me be less invested in discovering that Calvin agrees with me.)

   Of course all agree in theory that there is an eternal election, but there’s hardly any need to ever talk about the sins of the elect having already been imputed to Christ before His death. The important shibboleths are “free offer” and “common grace” and agreeing that “faith is the condition of union” and then that this union with Christ is the condition of justification.

   Rube Red, i agree with you, except you need to remember “sacramental union” which Calvin cannot explain but which non-explanation is the litmus test for being truly Reformed. When you say ‘words”, you might be limiting yourself to forensic “justification” categories. You might be forgetting the weekly mystical “revivals” in which we are nourished by the personal presence in the “sacrament”. I agree with McCormack, that in the end, it’s a lot about Nevin vs Hodge, Calvin vs Zwingli. Another dichotomy.

   Hodge and Zwingli being the “rationalist” bad guys, you see.

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10. Not to forget Machen, I wanted to ask a question. If I am not mistaken, Machen seems to say that he has come lately to the doctrine of “active obedience” (vicarious law-keeping) through the influence of John Murray. I looked in Defending the Faith for information about this, but didn’t find anything. If it’s true that Machen spent most of his Christian life without knowing (or caring much) about this doctrine, what does that mean? Does it mean that the doctrine is, at the end of the day, not that significant? Or should we rather rejoice that Machen did come to appreciate it, and found it a great comfort in his dying? I suppose both could be true.

    Was Machen such a New Testament guy that he had not noticed (much) a “systematic” category like “active obedience”?

    The usual disclaimers apply. The passive is active. The death is also the righteousness. Piscator did not deny that Christ had secured all the positive benefits of justification. And etc.

    http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/the-denial-of-the-active-obedience-of-christ-piscator-on-justification/

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11. McMark, I don’t know the exact answer, but I suspect that Machen — like all of us — had to study a topic in order to teach about it. This happens when we teach Sunday school or a college course. And when he started to look at Christ’s work, he encountered ideas that he had likely only taken notes on and perhaps written an exam question about in seminary.

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12. Mark Garcia, Life in Christ: Union with Christ and Twofold Grace in Calvin’s Theology, 2008

    “The Spirit of union replicates IN THE EXPERIENCE OF THE FAITHFUL what was true of Christ in His own experience…What precedes in the divinely ordered sequence is called the ’cause’ of what follows. For Calvin, the good works of believers are on this account properly regarded as causes of salvation, though non-meritoriously. The uniquely meritorious character of Christ’s work is safeguarded….by the idea of union with Christ and non-meritorious causation. There is
    no justification without works just as there is no justification on account of works.”, p 255

    1 Timothy 3:16 “By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.”

    mcmark: If you are going to have two kinds of righteousness, it certainly would make sense to have two aspects of justification, one now and one not yet. But there is only one justification, and it is based on Christ’s death alone. How was Christ justified? Certainly not by becoming born again. Christ was justified by satisfying the righteous requirement of the law for the sins imputed to Christ. Christ was justified by His death. Christ needed to be justified because Christ legally shared the guilt of His elect, and this guilt demanded His death. Christ was not justified because the Spirit gave Him a new disposition or a new nature.

    Romans 6:9–”We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.”

    So Christ was justified by His own righteousness (I don’t care if you call it “merits”). Christ was declared to be just, not simply by who He was as an incarnate person, but by what He had done in satisfaction to the law. Remember that “imputed” has two senses, one which is legal sharing and the other is declare. No righteousness was shared from somebody else to Christ, because Christ had earned His own righteousness.

    We need to say that the justification of the elect sinner is different from the justification of Christ. The legal merit of Christ’s death is shared by God with the elect sinner, as Romans 6 says, when they are placed/baptized into that death.

    So there’s only one righteousness, and only one kind of justification.. In Christ’s case, no legal sharing. In the case of the justified elect, that same one death is legally shared, and this one death is enough, because counted to them it completely satisfies the law for righteousness. (Romans 8:4 and 10:4)

    Romans 6:7–”For one who has died has been justified from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.”

    The Norman Shepherd problem begins to creep into our theology when people begin to think that since Christ was justified by what He did, then the elect also must be justified by what they are enabled to do. But there are not two justifications, one now by imputation, and another not yet, where we will be justified like Christ was. We are ONLY justified by what Christ did, and NOT by what Christ is now doing in us. Christ alone was justified by what He did.

    Romans 3:28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart fromworks of the law.

    Romans 4: 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

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13. Shepherd likes to use (for his own purposes) Machen’s distinction (in Notes on Galatians) between works before faith and works after faith. And of course I would not say it the same way that Machen did. But let’s ask Machen the Romans 8:4 and 10:4 question—what does “For I through the law died to the law” mean in Galatians 2:19?

    Machen, Notes, p 159— “The law . . . led men, by its clear revelation of what God requires, to relinquish all claim to salvation by their own obedience. In that sense, surely, Paul could say that it was through the law that he died to the law. The law made the commands of God so terribly clear that Paul could see plainly that there was no hope for him if he appealed for his salvation to his own obedience to those commands… This interpretation yields a truly Pauline thought. But the immediate context suggests another, and an even profounder, meaning for the words.”

    Machen: “The key to the interpretation is probably to be found in the sentences, I have been crucified together with Christ, which almost immediately follows. The law, with its penalty of death upon sins (which penalty Christ bore in our stead) brought Christ to the cross; and when Christ died I died, since he died as my representative.”

    Machen: “The death to the law… the law itself brought about. Since Christ died that death as our representative, we too have died that death. Thus our death to the law, suffered for us by Christ, far from being contrary to the law, was in fulfillment of the law’s own demands. “

    Charles Hodge—“One’s interpretation of Romans 8 verse 4 is determined by the view taken of Romans 8:3. If that verse means that God, by sending His Son, destroyed sin in us, then, of course, this verse must mean, “He destroyed sin in order that we should fulfill the law” — that is, so that we should be holy (sanctification). But if Romans 8:3 refers to the sacrificial death of Christ and to the condemnation of sin in Him as the sinners’ substitute, then this verse must refer to justification and not sanctification.”

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14. no need for me to copy Fesko on the resurrection and second coming, but read it!

    http://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=65

    “Richard Gaffin tries to argue, on the basis of the grammar involved in a similar Pauline statement, that works are not the ground of judgment: “It is not for nothing, I take it, and not to be dismissed as an overly fine exegesis to observe, that in Romans 2:6 Paul writes, ‘according (kata) to works,’ not ‘on account of (dia),’ expressing the ground, nor ‘by (ek) works,’ expressing the instrument” (By Faith, Not By Sight) 2006, p 98-99;

    Fesko: Though Gaffin’s comment concerns Paul’s statement in Romans 2:6, at the same time we find the same prepositional combination with the accusative in John’s statement in Revelation 20:12e, the only difference being in the use of the singular and plural pronouns (cf. Rom 2:6). Gaffin argues this point because he wants to preserve sola fide in the judgment of the works of the believer.

    Relying upon the analysis of Ridderbos and Murray, Gaffin’s finer point is that the judgment kata works is “in accordance with” the works, and such works are synecdochical for faith in Christ (see Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology, trans. John Richard de Witt [1975; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992], 178-81; Murray, Romans, 78-79).

    Yet can such a fine distinction be supported by the grammar alone? The use of “dia” with the accusative means “because of, on account of,” and the use of “kata” with the accusative means “in accordance with, corresponding to” (Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996], 368-69, 376-77). One must ask, what difference exists between the two?

    In fact, when we delve more deeply into the significance of “kata” with the accusative, we find that “often the noun that follows kata specifies the criterion, standard, or norm in the light of which a statement is made or is true, an action is performed, or a judgment is passed. The preposition. will mean ‘according to’, ‘in conformity with’, ‘corresponding to.’ This use is common in reference to the precise and impartial standard of judgment that will be applied at the great Assize (Matt. 16:27; Rom 2:6; 1 Cor 3:8; 2 Tim. 4:14; 1 Peter 1:17; Rev 2:23)” (Murray J. Harris, “Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament,” in NIDNTT, 3:1200).

    Gaffin’s argument apparently fails to account for judgment kata works for the wicked. This point seems to be borne out by Paul’s own use of kata, as he says, “He will render each one according to [kata] his works” (Rom. 2:6), but this rendering kata works is for both the righteous (v. 7) and the wicked (v. 8).

    According to Gaffin’s interpretation, are the wicked judged according to their works, but are they not the ground of their condemnation (see 2 Cor. 11:15)? Again, note how Paul uses kata: “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due [to de ergazomeno ho misthos ou logizetai kata charin alla kata opheilema]” (Rom 4:4; see also Brian Vickers, Jesus Blood and Righteousness [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006] 95.

    Judgment therefore is indeed kata (in accordance with, or on the basis of) works – the evil works of the unbeliever

    and?

    the good works (in accordance with, or on the basis of) the righteous works of Christ.

    “Justification: Understanding the Classic Reformed Doctrine” p. 315

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15. So there’s only one righteousness, and only one kind of justification

    This discussion is a few levels above my pay grade, but I would say two kinds of justification: Christ’s justification, which was because of his intrinsic righteousness, and our justification, which is because of alien righteousness. But I think that’s what you were saying anyways, perhaps in the form of “Christ’s justification, which was because of Christ’s righteousness, and our justification, which was because of Christ’s righteousness”.

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16. exactly right, RubeRed. I should have said, not two types of justification for sinners. Thanks for the correction.

    Now that I think about it, I could speak of two kinds of justification for sinners. The one by Christ’s righteousness, by His satisfaction of the law. The other, in Romans 2, which some call “hypothetical”, ie, based on our works, ie, never going to happen.

    Of course Shepherd (with Dan Fuller) waxes eloquent against God offering any “hypothetical”, not only when he talks “covenant of works” but also Romans 2. I prefer to say that justification by sinners being enabled to do good works (and meet conditions) is an EMPTY SET. I don’t know who first used that language. Not me, maybe Mike Horton, maybe David Gordon….

    Thanks again, and please jump in. Your clear thoughts will help more than my many words.

    The Gentiles did not arrive at righteousness by pursuing it the right way. The Gentiles did not pursue righteousness. Romans 9:32–Romans 10:4

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17. Thx MkMcC, we are on the same page. Except those last two sentences; permit me to attempt to translate again?

    The Jews did not arrive at righteousness because they did not pursue it the right way. (The Gentiles didn’t even pursue righteousness) Rom 9:32–Rom 10:4

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18. Good work, McMark.

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19. Evans: This pervasive covenantalism has led to extrinsic views of solidarity in sin and salvation in which the unity and concreteness of salvation in Christ has been obscured. Instead, salvation has often been understood more abstractly as on the basis of what Christ has done. Notions of “legal” unions with Christ and Adam provided a conceptual apparatus for articulating nominal or extrinsic relationships between Adam and humanity and between Christ and the Christian.

    Evans: By the 19th century this extrinsicism was so ingrained in the tradition that later federalist such as Charles Hodge, William Cunningham, and Louis Berkhof were taking Calvin to task for his view of union with Christ, and the rich sacramental theology of the earlier Reformed tradition was not-so-subtly reinterpreted (as John W. Nevin demonstrated in his The Mystical Presence and subsequent debate with Hodge).

    mark: If “legal imputation” has priority, does that point to some invisible “merit” and ‘”counting” and away from Christ the person and away from “concrete” Christian persons? Is the “extrinsic” the “nominal”? I didn’t think so, not before the unionists came along. Nor do I think so now.

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20. “because they did not pursue it the right way”.

    I agree that the important point is that they didn’t arrive at righteousness. But see David Gordon’s excellent essay on this question. WTJ (Spring 1992): “Why Israel did not obtain Torah Righteousness; A note on Romans 9:32.”

    Romans 9:32–”Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling-stone.”

    In order to perform its killing function, the Mosaic covenant was law demanding perfection with the power to condemn. Law is not only a tutor that “reveals” sin or makes people aware of sin. Romans 5:20 says that the law entered that sin would increase, not simply knowledge about sin would increase.

    The law does not only “kill” only by making us thinking of things to do that we would not have thought of before. The main way that the law kills is that it is used by idolaters (all of us by nature) to try to justify ourselves before God. We think–I did it, or I did enough of it. The law kills, leads to death, and if no gospel, only that. But the elect are taught by law and gospel to SEE that they are dead.

    Only Christ by His obedience to death for the elect has satisfied the requirements of law and found a righteousness for the elect, so that the law now demands that the elect be given every blessing of salvation. But did the Mosaic law-covenant announce clearly that it was a “killing instrument” and not the gospel? If it didn’t, who could blame any Jew for using the law wrong , attempting to be saved by keeping it?

    Some who focus only on redemptive history (“biblical theology”) say that there is no difference between law and gospel, but only a right way and a wrong way of pursuing the law, and that the gospel is the right way of sinners pursuing the law.

    it’s monday night, redskins-eagles

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21. Well then, let me chime in…

    Go Eagles!

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22. E! A! G! L! E! S! Eagles!

    Quite the cheer. Maybe Mark Van Der Molen can follow it.

    And the Birds aren’t even breaking the Sabbath. The proverbial win win.

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23. “And the Birds aren’t even breaking the Sabbath. The proverbial win win.”

    It’s true, they just employ self-acknowledged racists and animal abusers. Win Win.

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24. Sean, never look too closely at the backgrounds of professional sports team members. That has taken me far in life, my w-w as it were.

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25. Darryl, when it comes to my teams I’m all rainbows and unicorns. When it comes to somebody else’s, I need to check the police blotter, rorschach results and Oprah Winfrey confessions.

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26. Did you ever have somebody tell you–“if I hear what you are saying, it is——-” and then attempt to translate what you said into what they think? I tend to respond–listen again, because you did not hear me. It seems to me that this is what Leithart does with Machen.

    Machen spoke of the finished work of Christ imputed to those who believe the gospel. Leithart speaks of the personal presence of Christ, present now in “union” and especially in “sacramental union”. Thus Leithart “hears” Reformed iconoclasm as the means to get the masses back to the “special locations” where Christ will be truly present.

    Leithart: I am comforted by the imputation of Christ’s active obedience” is doubtless often a circumlocution for “I am comforted by my faithful Lord Jesus who is with me by His Spirit.” – See more at: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2013/09/05/comfort/#sthash.VjL9NJuS.dpuf

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27. Leithart— de-personalizing and doctrinalizing comfort can, contrary to the best intentions, distance the suffering from the God who comforts.

    we are children of Abraham
    remember that Abraham knew what the seed
    would have to do
    Abraham knew that he himself was not going
    to bring in the righteousness

    the test of our exodus out of the false gospel
    is not our testimony that
    “we know the person”
    if our Christ is the same person everybody knows

    we are not called to a tragic imperative
    “to know the person” without knowing which person
    Christ’s sheep don’t follow the wrong
    person taught in the wrong doctrine

    i still want to know,
    how did a nice person like Christ
    get himself killed
    if it was not the offense of his doctrine?

    and what was the offense of His doctrine?
    was it His personal presence?
    or was it His death, that we needed it?
    that He died as a substitute, instead of us?

    ——

    yes, it’s fact that Christ died
    but there are many possible options
    to explain that fact,
    and these doctrines divide

    they hated His doctrine
    so much they wanted Him dead
    but that was a long time ago
    and now we all love the presence of His person
    down in our hearts and also in our sacraments

    and now that we are in a Romans 1 situation
    I mean things are really bad,
    and the pope is one of the few guys left
    why take the time for impersonal doctrine?

    we need no creed or confession
    to simply merely gather close together with Christ the person
    we can give you reasons
    that our doctrines are not doctrines
    and thank our god we are not
    like those cold doctrine persons

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28. Notwithstanding the in’s and out’s of this discussion… can we not now clearly see, if we could not before, why the Federal Vision is a pastoral disaster!

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29. So true; and it’s ironic, because (as I’ve seen it up close), FV grows out of a desire to ‘pastorally’ tell each and every butt sitting in the pew (‘head for head’) that they indeed are elect. (And in order to say this with a straight face, they just need to redefine election so it is temporal and possibly temporary)

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30. I thought if we were justified, then the guilt of sin has no real ongoing influence in the life of the believer, we’ve been delivered from all guilt. We’re not guilty. God is for us, who can be against us?

    is that wrong?

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31. Well, Paul, if we’re definitively sanctified, then the power of sin has no ongoing influence in our lives? Who are you going to believe?

    Or could it be, that we continue to sin and continue to need forgiveness which is always there.

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32. N.T. Wright’s version of Federal Vision is just Roman Catholicism minus Purgatory.

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33. Ginger, how can one be confident they have a clue what Wright and his friends are really saying?

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34. So I’m not freed from guilt by justification?

    Some explain it that we don’t face God as a wrathful judge any more after justification, but as a loving father who is certainly displeased with our sin (and thus we need to repent as to a father, and receive forgiveness as from a father) That makes sense to me, but it seemed like saying there are ongoing influences from actual guilt didn’t fit that.

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35. Let me put it this way, perhaps more clearly: While sin still influences the sanctified, we have to confess that we are no longer *enslaved* to sin (a legal status). Our slavery to sin does not influence us, because in actual fact we are NO LONGER slaves to sin. We are able to sin or not to sin (third state of man)

    Likewise, GUILT, a legal category, is no longer that which influences the justified christian. We may mistake God’s fatherly displeasure for true legal guilt, but such is not the case, for we are no longer guilty before God.

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36. Hard to put into words, eh?

    And imagine that you have a set of trolls and weasels who will endlessly attack you no matter what you put down in writing…

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37. Some pretty smart guys wrote it this way:

    Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified, or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience…

    Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but do sweetly comply with it

    So there is “conviction”, which leads to repentance and appropriating Christ’s righteousness, but not “conviction=guilt” in the sense that it leads to condemnation or judgment.

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38. Kent,
    We had our church split of the Federal Vision eight years ago….It was nasty.
    Having read NT Wright over the last eight years side by side with other good commentaries on Romans has certainly shed enough light for me to say:

    NT Wright is neither interesting nor unique in his version of the New Perspective on Paul, and even though he uses reformed terminology he speaks a Roman Catholic word.

    Ginger

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39. Kent,

    The main thing I’ve garnered from N.T. Wright is that the only one who can properly interpret N.T. Wright is N.T. Wright. Every critic of him has misunderstood him.

    At what point does the fact that everyone misinterprets you indicate that perhaps you are the one with the communication problem?

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40. I appreciate that the theological distinctions and nuances are significant particularly when it concerns ecclesiology. But as an outsider looking in, whether it was Shepherd or Union, crafted to stay in bounds, or even ham-fisted FV. Once you decide that the renovative is the point, I’m not sure why one would remain a confessional protestant. Rome does this better, from the individual to culture transformation, and I’ll take a confessional over a prayer closet all day and twice on sunday.

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41. Kent wrote, The main thing I’ve garnered from N.T. Wright is that the only one who can properly interpret N.T. Wright is N.T. Wright. Every critic of him has misunderstood him.

    And every interpreter of Romans since the second century up until the Wright interpretation got it wrong!

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42. an outsider looking in, whether at Norman Shepherd or at the “unionists” (crafted to stay in bounds), or even the federal visionists…. once you decide that you want transformation and renovation instead of imputation, I’m not sure why one would remain a confessional protestant. Rome does this better….

    mark: Not sure about the last part (the methodists in the past, the mormons now), but I certainly agree that those who deny that imputation unites the elect to Christ should not claim to be confessional Protestants. But perhaps they have jobs in a church or seminary which they wish to hang on to. Those who want to transform Christendom don’t tend to come out–like the liberals they stay and take over, like the Magisterial Reformers they engage in constant negotiations.

    James Jordan: “The sectarian compares the weakness of other churches to his own supposed strength, and pronounces them apostate on that basis. The catholic notes the weakness of other churches, and because of that tries to work with them, and prays for them. The sectarian thinks history has ended; the catholic realizes that it has not. (If anything, by the way, ‘postmillennialists’ should be even more flexibly catholic than others, because they believe that history has a long way to go, and that theology and ecclesiology will be developing for centuries to come.)” , The Sociology of the Church, pg. 59

    James Jordan: “We depart from the whole Reformation tradition at certain pretty basic points. It’s no good pretending otherwise…we are poison to traditional presbyterianism. We are new wine, and they are an old skin. So, for the sake of the people we are called to minister to, we do our best. But we don’t really “belong” there.

    “I mean, think about it. Would any of you seek ordination in a Baptist denomination? No. Then why do you seek ordination in non-paedocommuning Presbyterian/Reformed denominations? Don’t tell me that these aren’t the same question, because at the practical level, American presbyterianism is just “Baptist light.” That’s what Banner of Truth Calvinism is, and why it’s been Reformed Baptists who most appreciate it…. That’s what the Southern Presbyterian tradition is. That’s what American individualist conversionist presbyterianism is.

    “So, why are you trying to get ordained presbyterian? Why not seek to get ordained Baptist? There are a whole lot more baptists out there. A bigger pond. Larger sphere of influence. Well, it’s because the baptists won’t have us, and so far the presbys will. But there’s no reason why the presbys should receive us, since sacramentally speaking we are NOT Reformed”

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43. ” I certainly agree that those who deny that imputation unites the elect to Christ should not claim to be confessional Protestants. ”

    Why would a confessional prebysterian affirm that imputation unites the elect to Christ, when the catechism says that effectual calling unites the elect to Christ?

    “The Spirit applieth to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling”

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44. Lane Tipton’s essay “Biblical Theology and the Westminster standards” is one more attempt at talking about the “location of justification relative to union with Christ” (p 5, Westminster Theological Journal, 2013)

    Tipon wants to put faith before God’s imputation of righteousness. Tipton also wants to put faith before “union with Christ”. Using confessional language( 11:4—”the Holy Spirit doth in due time apply Christ to them”), Tipton reasons that the Holy Spirit has priority over Christ in the event of imputation, since it’s faith that precedes both justification and “union”, and since the Holy Spirit is the one who gives faith.

    On the way to his conclusion, Lane Tipton uses the phrase “faith-union” which of course is not confessional. Instead of exploring any definition or distinction between Christ being in us or us being in Christ, Tipton simply stipulates that “union” is preceded by faith. First, this eliminates the alternative that God’s imputation precedes “union”. Second, it decides in advance what “union” is.

    For Tipton, “union” is assumed to be “union conditioned on faith” and for him this means there can be no union by imputation (even though he does not deny that Christ’s work is the basis for effectual calling). Thus Tipton begins with his conclusion, which is that effectual calling is not an immediate result of God’s imputation but instead an immediate condition for God’s imputation.

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45. It’s one of those BT formulations/reformulations where they need to have left well enough alone. Their re-ordering is unhelpful and less clear than the confessional formulations.

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46. Tipton rightly criticizes the idea of justification before and without faith. But Tipton does not consider the idea of an imputation that results in faith and justification, despite what Mike Horton and Bruce McCormack have written about this issue.

    But, remember the Westminster Confession! The WCF does nott say “imputation before faith”. The Confession says “the Holy Spirit does in due time apply Christ to them”. But we stil need tol think about what this ” apply Christ” means. If it means that the Holy Spirit gives the effectual calling and faith, without which there is no justification, then I agree.

    But Tipton assumes that the “Spirit applies Christ” rules out any idea of God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness before this work of the Spirit. It does not.

    Tipton does know about a difference between imputation and justification. Tipton correctly speaks of justification as “God’s legal declaration”, and knows this is something different from God’s “constitutive act” which is the basis for the legal declaration. But even so, Tipton argues that if the declaration “did not bring into view faith, by which alone righteousness is imputed, we would be left with a legal fiction.” (p 9)

    Here we come to the basic issue. I disagree that faith is that which imputes righteousness. We are not the one who make the imputation (the constitutive act). Our faith is not that which imputes.

    Tipton writes—”faith, by which righteousness is imputed”. I understand this to mean that God waits to impute, until the Holy Spirit gives faith. If that’s not what Tipton means, I would like to be shown what he did mean. But how can God be justifying the ungodly, if God only imputes righteousness to persons who are already effectually called and who are now believing the gospel?

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47. How could any of this “order stuff” be so important? First, it must be important to Tipton, because his entire essay is an exercise in talking about the Holy Spirit and faith being first, even to the extent that he assumes that “union” is “faith-union”. Second, it must be important because Tipton says that any other reading of the Confession would result in a “legal fiction”.

    In other words, if I were to say that “union” is caused by God’s imputation, that would be “legal fiction” to Tipton. If I were to say that imputation is first, and not conditioned on effectual calling, that too would be “legal fiction” to Tipton. He insists that it’s work of the Spirit which is the conditional location of the real (non-fiction) which must precede God’s imputation.

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48. One more thought about trying to say things the way the Confession says them. Jump to Tipton’s conclusion on p 11—”It is not MERELY in the atoning death of Christ that we find the judicial ground for the believer’s justification (by faith alone in union with Christ). It is ALSO FOUND IN THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST AS JUSTIFIED. IT IS THE GOD-APPROVED RESURRECTION RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST ALONE, imputed to me by faith alone, that stands at the tribunal of God.”

    To repeat myself. The righteousness is NOT imputed by faith. My faith does not impute the righteousness. Nor does God wait for my faith before God imputes Christ’s righteousness.

    But what exactly is imputed? The answer of Gaffin and Tipton is that it’s not “merely’ the finished work which is imputed. It’s not “merely” the merits of Christ’s past obedience. According to them, the justified status of Christ is imputed.

    They have kept “within the bounds of the confession” by not denying the imputation of the finished work of Christ. When they say “not merely that”, they are also saying “that’s included also”. Unlike the federal visionists who do deny imputation, the “unionists” are catholic enough not to deny it, but also catholic enough to include other “concrete realities” like the work of the Spirit transforming and renovating (“definitively”!) us so that we can one day be justified the same way Christ was, which also was by the reality of the Holy Spirit’s work.

    I ask a simple question. Is this the way Confession says it? Is this what “the Spirit applies Christ” means? If so, maybe there’s nothing new or important to learn from the Gaffin/Tipton way of saying it.

    But IS IT the way the Confession says it?

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49. Mark, I haven’t read Tipton enough. My issue with the Union re-ordering is it tends to make the renovative and ontological consideration antecedent to the forensic. IOW, we no longer REALLY have God justifying the ungodly. Instead, we are thrown back onto the roman scheme of God declaring just those who have been, or are being made just.

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50. Sean, amen to that. It turns out to be a way of accomodating both Roman Catholicism (a not yet aspect of justification which depends on what God does in us) and also Arminianism (union conditioned on faith). What Arminian really denies that faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit? (They call it “prevenient grace”, but it turns out that one has to persevere in “not resisting” grace, because Arminians think that those who are justified now can still lose it).

    (I am not saying that Tipton is Arminian. Rather, his more Augustinian account of justification is not the same as the federal language of the Confession. But Tipton’s monergistic account of effectual calling does keep him from Arminianism. )

    How can God be justifying the ungodly, if God only imputes righteousness to persons who are already effectually called and who are now believing the gospel?

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51. Sean: The confession’s description of Effectual Calling, which is necessary for and prior to faith, is quite renovative.

    if that causes actual problems for an ‘ungodly’ object of justification, i’ll eat my hat.

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52. Paul seeing as the confession talks about Justification in this manner;

    I. Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies;[1] 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; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them,[

    I’m assuming your idea of renovative and mine may be different.

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53. WCF 11 –
    “Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies… 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.”

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54. right. But the person God justifies, on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, that person has already had the Spirit do the following to them (so they could have faith)

    “taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good;”

    If that isn’t renovative i’ll eat my other hat.

    You need to be renovated to have faith in the first place. Because you are dead in sins otherwise.

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55. Tipton does know the difference between imputation and declaration, I quote from p 11—”The declaration of righteousness is not prior to the imputation of righteousness. either logically or temporally, because the declaration takes into account the constitutive act of imputation….” This is exactly right.

    You can make a declaration about God being just without any prior constitutive act, because analytically God is just. But you cannot make a declaration about an ungodly sinner being just without the prior act of God’s imputation of righteousness to that sinner. So I ask Paul another question for him not to answer. If God did impute righteousness immediately before (as a cause) faith, would there be anything wrong with that? Can God not impute Christ’s righteousness to the ungodly until they have been changed inside and put on the road to being inherently godly?

    Of course Tipton continues to insist that effectual calling must precede the imputation: “and the transaction of imputation is situated within the broader reality of union by Christ by Spirit-wrought faith.” Notice the use of the word “reality”. Would God’s imputation not be real if it came before and resulted in the Spirit’s work? Is the Spirit’s work more real than Christ’s work? Is the Spirit’s work more real than God’s imputation of the merits of Christ’s work?

    Tipton is simply begging the question all over again, by assuming that there can be no “imputation-union” but only a ‘faith-union”. Paul is simply assuming that the Confession should only be read his way.

    Notice the language—”situated within the broader reality of union”. This is the old cake and eat it also. On the one hand, if you keep the notion “broad” (and undefined) enough, then you can say the order of application doesn’t matter so much (Barth). But then on the other hand, it turns our that the order is important, because “union” HAS TO come after faith and before imputation.

    It also turns out that “union” needs to be ‘concrete” and this turns out to mean that “union” is by the Holy Spirit, and according to Tipton, dogmatically NOT “union by imputation”.

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56. II. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

    We can get into fine-tuning the exact moment of this and that, but it seems that the effectual call, its grace offered and all that is conveyed in it is received of the sinner when he “embraces” it as a gift of grace by the Holy Spirit. And what is this ’embracing’ except the act of faith by grace given?

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57. Again, I’m not sure where all the fine tuning has gotten us but less clear constructions of the righteousness of God imputed to us as opposed to infused in us. It’s clear the divines had the intent of distinguishing protestant justification from roman justification, and this at the very point of forensic vs. ontological consideration;

    “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………”

    As such I don’t see, from a confessional perspective, what’s to be gained by re-ordering. Particularly when considered within the Pauline constructions of works vs. faith (rom 4) or works vs. grace(eph 2:8-9). To say nothing of the dichotomy posited elsewhere including Gal 3. Rome’s constructions are always in the background of the divines polemical and positive constructions in the confession.

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58. Paul,

    Right on. Gaffin, Tipton, et al. are pointing out that justification occurs in conjunction with our union with Christ. Apart from union with Christ there would be no way for us to be declared righteous.

    The charge that Gaffin makes the restorative the basis of Justification is to misunderstand Gaffin’s whole position. For Gaffin our Union with Christ secures our sanctification and justification. They are inseparably joined but cannot be confused. The basis of our justification is the righteousness of Christ which is imputed to us (in our union with Christ), not on the basis of our Spirit wrought sanctity.

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59. “taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good;”

    Isn’t the above that which is conveyed in the grace of the effectual call? Which the sinner is grace-enabled to embrace and make his own?

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60. Brandon, Certainly you don’t need to read the previous posts to repeat a thesis. But let me ask you something. How do you define “union”?

    Are you talking about us being “in Christ” or Christ being in us? When you say “union”, are you not talking about the work of the Spirit in us? Does the person of Christ have priority to His work? Does the present work of the Spirit (“union”?) have priority to the past work of Christ?

    By Faith Not By Sight) Gaffin : “Typically in the Reformation tradition the hope of salvation is expressed in terms of Christ’s righteousness, especially as imputed to the believer…however, I have to wonder if ‘Christ in you’ is not more prominent as an expression of evangelical hope…” p 110

    Tipton (Westminster Theological Journal, p 11)—”It is not MERELY in the atoning death of Christ that we find the judicial ground for the believer’s justification (by faith alone in union with Christ). It is ALSO FOUND IN THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST AS JUSTIFIED. IT IS THE GOD-APPROVED RESURRECTION RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST ALONE, imputed to me by faith alone, that stands at the tribunal of God.”

    mark mcculley: The righteousness is NOT imputed by faith. My faith does not impute the righteousness. Nor does God wait for my faith before God imputes Christ’s righteousness. But what exactly is imputed? The answer of Gaffin and Tipton is that it’s not “merely’ the finished work which is imputed. According to them, the justified status of Christ is imputed. And thus the not-yet aspect of our justification depends on the not-yet work of the Holy Spirit in us.

    Machen: “The death to the law… the law itself brought about. Since Christ died that death as our representative, we too have died that death. Thus our death to the law, suffered for us by Christ, far from being contrary to the law, was in fulfillment of the law’s own demands.

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61. Impute: to assign, to credit…

    This I think God does this apart from any action by or in us. That which God imputes is that which Christ himself secured for the sinner through his death and resurrection, that which God sovereignly credits to us, i.e the forgiveness of sins and the righteousness of Christ…

    This we receive through the instrument of faith alone… no?

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62. I’m not saying that this work of grace is not in us. Indeed it is in us… Christ becomes ours because He has made us his. And we receive Christ as our salvation through faith…

    Eph. 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

    1 Cor 1:30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

    Calvin: “I acknowledge that we are devoid of this incomparable gift until Christ become ours. Therefore, to that union of the head and members, the residence of Christ in our hearts, in fine, the mystical union, we assign the highest rank, Christ when he becomes ours making us partners with him in the gifts with which he was endued. Hence we do not view him as at a distance and without us, but as we have put him on, and been ingrafted into his body, he deigns to make us one with himself, and, therefore, we glory in having a fellowship of righteousness with him.”

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63. The traditional way of dealing with the chicken-egg dilemma concerning faith and justification has been via the Aristotelian “causes,” e.g.,

    Calvin: “[S]ince there remains nothing for men, as to themselves, but to perish, being smitten by the just judgment of God, they are to be justified freely through his mercy; for Christ comes to the aid of this misery, and communicates himself to believers, so that they find in him alone all those things in which they are wanting. There 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” (comment on Romans 3:24).

    WLC 73: “Q. How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God? A. Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness.”

    That solves it, no?

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64. Sure like that WLC 73! Perhaps another way to approach the topic of “union” is to think through “federalism” again. By that, I mean we could think about original sin as “imputed guilt”. It seems to me that not many people are talking about that anymore, even those who are fighting the battle against the “new perspective”.

    The Bible sometimes has justification (imputation, counting) without any transfer. For example, Psalm 106: 30-31 tells us that “Phinehas stood up and intervened and the plague was stayed and that was counted to him as righteousness.” Nobody replaced Phinehas or did his killing work for him. But neither is there any idea in this text that something not really righteous got counted as righteous.

    God counted Phinehas killing the two people as righteousness because it WAS righteousness, not to justify him but as sufficient cause to stop the plague against Israel. The story of Phinehas is not gospel, because it has no transfer to or from Jesus Christ.

    God is always righteous so God imputes righteousness for what it is. Thus God justifies Christ because of the righteousness Christ brought in, and God justifies the ungodly because of a ‘transfer” (call it a “constitutive act”) of the righteousness of Christ.

    It’s not only the gospel which talks about a “transfer”. The law also talks about a “transfer”. When the sin of Adam is transferred to every human person (not when they are teenagers but when they are born), this transfer of guilt is not good news.

    God does not transfer the guilt of Adam to us because we are united to Adam in sharing the same nature. Because we are united to Adam by his guilt transferred to us, we share Adam’s nature.

    To make “union” something in us prior to the guilt begs several questions. Unless we begin by insisting that a transfer of guilt is unjust, we have no reason to define our union with Adam in metaphysical terms (organic, infused, imparted, “real”)

    This Transfer of guilt IS union with Adam, and results in depravity and death. This depravity is not for the elect alone, because the guilt of Adam is not for the elect alone.

    The gospel has a glorious transfer, but It is not a transfer of depravity. Christ was not imputed with the depravity of the elect, but with their guilt. Even though depravity is part of the punishment for imputed guilt, Christ was not imputed with depravity but with guilt.

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65. mcmark, isn’t that basically what Paul is discussing in Romans 5:12-21? Thanks for bringing up the federal head aspect of union.

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66. I think the problem comes up because ‘union with Christ’ or ‘our union with Christ” becomes the instrument of justification rather than faith. Whereas, from what I’ve read, the idea was that we were BOTH united to Christ and justified through faith, and that alone. So, mystical/existential union with Christ is true, and we talk about this union and all subsequent benefits as being communicated/conferred to us through faith. We don’t talk about/confess the benefits conferred through Union. So, union is conferred or embraced through faith and it is faith that is being worked up in us in regeneration so that both justification and sanctification are by/through faith. The Union substitution for faith and that alone, tends to, or outright does, cast us back to ontological considerations(i.e. Rome) as opposed to forensic considerations devoid of ‘spirit wrought sanctity’ which was the whole intent of grace through faith SO that it NOT be of works, spirit wrought or straight pelagian.

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67. Amen, sean! That’s my point, said more succinctly by you…

    Whereas, from what I’ve read, the idea was that we were BOTH united to Christ and justified through faith, and that alone. So, mystical/existential union with Christ is true, and we talk about this union and all subsequent benefits as being communicated/conferred to us through faith. We don’t talk about/confess the benefits conferred through Union. So, union is conferred or embraced through faith and it is faith that is being worked up in us in regeneration so that both justification and sanctification are by/through faith.

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68. While it is true that “as long as Christ remains outside of us … all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value to us” (Calvin) and also that justification “manifests [our] union with him” (WLC 69), yet it is interesting that “union with Christ” doesn’t appear anywhere in Calvin’s fourfold causal scheme.

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69. Jack, I just read you and McMark and try to summarize.

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70. Gee, guys, heady stuff. Making me pull out my Fesko as soon as I get home from work. In it, he writes: Namely, it is imperative that we hold together imputation and union with Christ, the priority of the legal-forensic over the transformative, all of which are relational. One might fight that same line here, and more:

    From here, we can identify three concepts that we must understand to have a proper understanding of the relationship between union with Christ and justification: (1) that the legal aspects of our redemption are relational; (2) justification is the legal aspect of our union with Christ; and (3) that justification is the ground of our sanctification.

    Here also is a good read.

    Pointing out stuff you guys already know,
    Andrew

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71. And now for something completely different!

    I told mcmark today that I tended to not knock the Pope because he is too easy target. But really…

    “In comments likely to enhance his progressive reputation, Pope Francis has written a long, open letter to the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, stating that non-believers would be forgiven by God if they followed their consciences.

    “Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Mr Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: “You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-assures-sceptics-you-dont-have-to-believe-in-god-to-go-to-heaven-8810062.html

    Pope Leo, Paul III, Julius III, and Pius IV are rolling over in their graves…

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72. Pingback: Seriously? Questioning Machen on the Active Obedience of Christ?

73. Jack,

    Pope Leo, Paul III, Julius III, and Pius IV are rolling over in their graves…

    Hey buddy, the Big Cheese is infallible, except when he isn’t. I have tried to use the same argument with my wife in headship discussions, and let me tell you: it works wonders! Now for my children.

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74. Sean: I think the problem comes up because ‘union with Christ’ or ‘our union with Christ” becomes the instrument of justification rather than faith.

    Mark: One problem is the need for a definition of “union” and you have taken a step in that direction ( I think) with your distinction between “union with Christ” (in Christ?) and “our union with Christ” (Christ in us). But Tipton is quite clear that faith is “instrumental” of both justification and “union” (though he does not define the unity except by saying “faith-union”).

    This is the problem. On the one hand, he makes faith to be instrumental (not result) of “union”, but on the other hand, he wants “union” to be that which precedes all other benefits. But the effectual calling and “instrumental faith” which he thinks of as conditions for “union”, are they not also benefits? It turns out that his notion of “union” is not as “broad” as he made it sound, and also that he still has a very specific order of application

    Of course the way that Tipton/Gaffin arrive at the idea that “union” makes the order of application not so important is the redemptive history of Christ’s resurrection by which Christ has (in this dispensation) “become life-giving Spirit” ( I Cor 15;45, Romans 1:3-4). But I agree with you, Sean, that replacing ‘faith” with a notion of “faith-union” has not changed the need to think about imputation in priority to faith.

    Of course Tipton/Gaffin don’t deny imputation, but by bringing in the “ontological” (definitive possession of Christ’s person?) alongside the forensic, they also arrive at a “dispensational justification”, one which now still haves a “not yet” aspect, and in which the Holy Spirit’s work in us plays a factor. Though it would be interesting to explore what this means for justification during the Old Testament, it is most important to be cautious about what it means for the gospel we proclaim now.

    Sean: The Union substitution for faith and that alone, tends to, or outright does, cast us back to ontological considerations(i.e. Rome) as opposed to forensic considerations

    Mark : We have moved well past the WCF reference to “the Spirit applies Christ”. Is it so important to say it Gaffin’s way that we need to be dogmatic in the way Tipton has been about faith being before “union” or ‘faith-union” being the meaning of “union” instead of “imputation-union”?

    Tipton, p 11—”If we want to locate the judicial ground for the believer’s union with Christ, we do not need to look to the forensic benefit of the believer’s justification.”

    mark: Of course not, but we DO need to look at Christ’s righteousness as the “judicial ground” ! We DO need to look to God’s imputation of that righteousness as the basis for “union”, indeed as that which is the real legal cause for calling and faith. Tipton knows the difference between imputation and declaration, knows the difference between the righteousness of Christ and justification as the benefit of declaration resulting from the imputation of that righteousness.

    There’s no need to make the benefit of justification be the cause of the imputation of the righteousness, and nobody is doing that except perhaps (to some extent) those who teach “eternal justification” or some notion of “objective active justification”. Of course there is no justification without faith in the gospel (which is a result of God’s imputation).

    But there IS every reason to say that God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness is the “judicial ground” by which the elect are identified with Christ and by which Christ comes to indwell the elect.

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75. Tipton does discuss Berkhof’s idea that something called ” active justification” precedes effectual calling and faith. I do not agree with either the idea of some objective “active justification”. or the idea of “eternal justification” .

    I simply don’t think we should equivocate with the word “justify”, so that sometimes we read it as “before our conscience” and other times we read it as “legally real before the tribunal of God”. When God imputed Christ’s righteousness to Abraham before Abraham was circumcised, that thought/imputation of God was not a “fiction” but a legal sharing at that time which immediately resulted in Abraham’s effectual calling, believing the gospel, and justification.

    Bavinck: When the Scriptures say of this justification in “a concrete sense” that it takes place by and through faith, then it does not intend to say that it is produced and wrought through that faith, since Jesus Christ is all our righteousness and all benefits of grace are the fruits of his labor and of his labor alone; they are entirely contained in his person and are not in any need of any addition on our part.

    The terminology, that “active justification” takes place unto and “passive justification” by and through faith may have some value against nomism; BUT THE SCRIPTURAL LANGAUGE IS ENTIRELY ADEQUATE PROVIDED IT IS UNDERSTOOD SCRIPTURALLY. Saving faith directs our eyes and heart from the very beginning away from ourselves and unto God’s mercy in Christ.

    Many have in later years, when the confessional power of the Reformation weakened, entered the way of self-examination, in order to be assured of the sincerity of their faith and their salvation. Thus was the focus shifted from the promise of God to the experience of the pious.

    It is not we who approach the judgment of God, after self-examination, with the sincerity of our faith, in order to receive there the forgiveness of our sins; God does not sit in judgment by himself in heaven to hear the parties and to pronounce sentence, He himself comes to us in the gospel. The foundation of faith lie outside ourselves in the promise of God; whoever builds thereupon shall not be ashamed.”

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76. McMark, I’m not parsing Tipton because I haven’t read enough of him. My pushback is the language of union as replacement for faith in reformed theology and particularly in confessional language. Faith is the BT and confessional ‘water carrier’ and better conveys specific forensic concepts over against works or ontological change whether considered polemically against the judaizers or the papists. Clark talks about union as being in the same category as predestination when it comes to positive proclamations of the faith; it’s in the background.

    Here’s Clark;

    “Historically, some Reformed folk have been tempted to place predestination in the foreground of Reformed theology. Our best theologians and certainly our confessional documents tend to treat predestination as a source of explanation for why things are the way they are but it remains in the background. For example, Theodore Beza (like Calvin) and the Reformed orthodox typically discouraged believers from asking, “Am I elect?” That’s the wrong question because we cannot know, in the abstract, if we are elect. It would require knowledge of God’s decree and such knowledge is hidden from us (Deut 29:29). The question we should ask is: “Do I believe?” The logic is thus: Only the elect believe, I believe, therefore I’m elect. That’s the Reformed faith.

    Our theologians and ecclesiastical documents tend to treat mystical union in a similar way. Rather than asking, “Do I have mystical union with Christ?”—again, how, in the abstract would we know?—we should ask, “Do I believe?” The Reformed faith teaches: Believers have union with Christ. I believe. Therefore I have union with Christ. If we start with mystical union or if we focus on it we tend to lose Christ, who is the object of faith and the source of our life. After all, the point of mystical union is to connect us to Christ not to call attention to itself.”

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77. Pingback: That covenant o… | High Plains Parson

78. Consider also the Trinitarian mishmash made by Tipton, Gaffin, and company. There is a real coinherence between the first Creation and the second, the New Creation. All things begin with the Father, are mediated through the Son, and brought to fruitful consummation in the Spirit. To confuse this order in the historia and ordo salutis seems to be the problem of the day. It is severing of the Father’s speaking the Son and bringing its powerful fruition through the Spirit. The Father declares justification through the mediation of the Son and the Spirit brings about its application. This is the Christian dogma of the Trinity and Redemption. This very parsing is what made Calvin’s christology and soteriology so Chalcedonian but the modern interpreters centering in Philly have entirely missed in reading him. Gaffin, Garcia, Tipton, Evans, et al. don’t have a clue concerning the Trinitarian realignment they have constituted because they have adopted an Idealistic notion of subjectivity and human agency that reflects this misunderstanding of the Trinitarian concursio and human agency as such.There are therefore excellent dogmatic reasons to reject the Spirit’s intrusion prior to the Son’s mediation in the application of redemption. It is not surprising therefore that Tipton doesn’t understand what imputation is. These things are all tied together, but Reformed theology has lost its moorings to such a degree post-reformed biblicism in the mid-twentieth century with its lack of metaphysical sophistication that this debate continues to swamp her academies.

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79. Wow Timothy, way to bring the lumber man. I hadn’t really considered the union debates in light of the Reformed/Western doctrines of the Trinity, but you raise some very interesting problems for the unionists here. Part of seems to be from the elevation of BT over ST/dogmatics that is hampering some circles in the Reformed camp – because we can’t have a contradiction between our doctrine of God and soteriology without creating some real problems.

    It makes me wonder how they would approach the filioque – kind of becomes a hollow confession when it is basically ignored in the application of the benefits of salvation.

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80. “The Father declares justification through the mediation of the Son and the Spirit brings about its application. ”

    mark: And the declaration is based on the Father’s imputation (constitutive act, transfer) of Christ’s finished work. The Spirit “bringing about application” is the Spirit creating the effectual call, but that effectual call is not the condition of the “in Chirst” (“union”) but the immediate result of God’s imputation (constitutive act).

    The Holy Spirit does not baptize anybody with anything

    John the baptist: “I baptize you with water but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”

    “Union with Christ” is not by the agency of the Holy Spirit. This is the un-examined problem of the Gaffin school when it comes to human agency in faith.

    Timothy: They…”don’t have a clue concerning the Trinitarian realignment they have constituted because they have adopted an Idealistic notion of subjectivity and human agency that reflects this misunderstanding…”

    mark: Amen, I think, Timothy, although I would be glad to hear more from you on this, particularly on “human agency”. These theologians seem to be monergists when it comes to the effectual calling (which they claim precedes God’s imputation), but alas they don’t seem so monergistic when it comes to the “not yet” aspects of justification. This is why they (along with many others, like Schreiner and Piper) threaten professing Christians with destruction

    Col 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.[c] 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

    This text of course does not say only “you have died”. The text DOES say “put to death”.

    But why? What is the motive? Many use this text as law only, as in “put to death or you will find out that you were never justified” (the federal visionists would say “or you will lose your justification and election”, but unionists would not say that).

    “On account of these sins the wrath of God”. They say, if you don’t continue to put off the old self, the not yet aspect of justification will not happen and then the wrath will come on you.” But the text says: you have put off, have put on, with the result that for the same sins the wrath will come on those who are not justified, the wrath will not come on those who are justified.

    Because this is true, live like a Christian. Put to death these sins.

    So this is not only about order of salvation, not only about justification. It’s about how we live the Christian life.

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81. Leithart has not the hope Machen had.

    Leithart can drone on apologetically for Constantine, and screw up the work of Christ. Bleh!

    http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-04-034-f

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82. O dear.. o dear…

    Where to begin?

    ‘That covenant of works was a probation. If Adam kept the law of God for a certain period, he was to have eternal life. If he disobeyed he was to have death. Well, he disobeyed and the penalty of death was inflicted on him and his posterity. ‘

    ‘The covenant of works was a probation (correct so far). If Adam kept the law of God (well where are we told that Adam was under the law of God – he was given but one law and that is the whole point, he had but one prohibition, one law. he did not have ‘the law of God’ as in the 10 Commandments since such would largely have been meaningless to him) for a certain period he was to have eternal life (where are we told this in the Genesis account? Is there any text that even supplies such a hint in Gen 1-3, the text from which every subsequent biblical writer builds his theology of creation and fall).

    What the text does say is that death is the outcome of disobedience… in this Machen is correct. Our problem is reading into the text what it does not say instead of reading out of it what it does say.

    ‘Well and good. But if that were all that Christ did for us, do you not see that we should be back in just the situation in which Adam was before he sinned? ‘

    Indeed not. Firstly, Pre-Fall Adam was in a state of innocence, not only in the sense of not having sinned but in the sense of not having an awareness of good and evil we never return to such a state of innocence as Machen admits in the last paragraph. Secondly, Scripture teaches us that when Christ died on the cross we died with him and our history as a man living in the flesh and under law came to an end – whatever our subsequent life may be it was no longer under law, any law thus Machen’s supposition is mistaken (…The penalty of his sinning would have been removed from us because it had all been paid by Christ. But for the future the attainment of eternal life would have been dependent upon our perfect obedience to the law of God. We should simply have been back in the probation again.)

    All this mistaken human logic leads to the assertion

    ‘Here we begin to understand why Jesus’ passive obedience is not enough – if divorced from his active obedience. The passive sufferings of Christ discharged the enormous debt we owe, due to our sins and the sin of Adam. In effect, Jesus’ passive obedience alone would bring our account from hopelessly overdrawn back to a zero balance – our debt would be retired. But having our debt retired and our sins forgiven does not get us into heaven; it simply returns us to the starting point. More must be done if we are to gain heaven. Righteousness must be completely fulfilled, either by us or by a representative acting on our behalf.’

    Where is this taught in Scripture? We are back to mere human logic. In fact Romans 4 makes clear that the blessed man whose sins are forgiven is ‘justified’. He is not partly justified but fully justified. He is not innocent but righteous. It is a righteousness completely effected by the death of Christ as Romans 3 makes clear: it is in Christ’s sacrifice that God’s righteousness is revealed, his righteousness in forbearing to punish the sins of the past and in declaring righteous those who have faith in Christ in the present.

    Of course that ‘one act of righteousness’ fitted Christ and all ‘in him through faith in his blood’ for eternal glory (though Christ was already so fitted by virtue of his eternal person). John in his gospel uses language of glory rather than righteousness to describe the virtue of the cross.

    John 13:31-32 (ESV2011)
    When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.

    It is Christ glorifying God in his death (by revealing there the entire submission of a man to his God and by providing in this obedience a theatre for all of who God is in himself to be revealed, his righteousness, love, grace, power, etc) that is the basis of his subsequent glory as Son of Man. God’s righteous response (the righteousness of God in the gospel) to this glorifying death is God will glorify him. My point is, the right to heavenly glory is all achieved at the cross… the resurrection being God’s vindication of him and all in him.

    The ‘in him’ language is crucial. I simply note justification is only meaningful in ‘in him’ language. Union with Christ is the key. It is in death and resurrection we are found righteous. That is the biblical shape and explanation of all we have in Christ. To construe justification in terms of active and passive obedience is to miss the point. My righteous standing is not Christ’s life on earth (with which I have no links) but his life in heaven. It is to a resurrected, risen Christ my new life is linked and in the righteous standing that is Christ’s before |God I share.

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83. Leithart and crew are fundamentalists when they want to be. They learned it at the feet of John Frame when it came to rightly dividing the Second commandment, which only explicitly forbids idolatry, nothing else. So of course the active and passive obedience of Christ is one distinction too far and a fallible man made one at that. Or BT trumps ST when it is convenient.

    “Human logic” John T? Methinks thou dost protest too much.
    No doubt to err is human, but having reasonable souls is part and parcel of being made in the image of God. Neither would you have a righteous standing if he who was without sin did not become the propitiation for it. There are positive duties commanded in the law – which Christ fulfilled – as well as the sins which are forbidden.

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84. Furthermore it is precisely because the active obedience of Christ is denied by the FV that Christians along with their faith are justified/judged by their works at Judgement day.

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85. JT, you asked “If Adam kept the law of God … for a certain period he was to have eternal life (where are we told this in the Genesis account?”

    My understanding is that is comes from “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” That is, if the law had been kept Adam could have taken and eaten of the tree of life and lived forever.

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86. t: “The ‘in him’ language is crucial. Justification is only meaningful in ‘in him’ language. Union with Christ is the key.”

    mark: nobody here is denying the importance of “in Christ” (or “Christ in us” either). Since it is so “key”, we are asking for some definitions and distinctions. Why is it so unthinkable that that becoming “in Christ” by imputation, with resulting effectual call, faith, and justification. Since the elect were already elect “in Christ” before the ages, why is it impossible to think of these same elect being justified in time because of the imputation of Christ’s death because of the imputed sins of the elect?

    Notice that I have said nothing to this point about the question of Christ’s vicarious law-keeping. Christ’s death itself is because of God’s imputation of all the sins of the elect to Christ. It’s key that we don’t allow undefined language about “union” to confuse the nature of Christ’s atonement. The atonement is not what the Holy Spirit does with Christ’s death. The finished atonement for the elect is imputed by God to the elect.

    You cannot say that “union” is the source of everything, and then turn around and say that “union” is the result of “faith”. Faith is given to the elect because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to the elect. You cannot say that “union” is the source of “justification”, and then turn around and say that ‘”faith” is given before both “union” and “justification”. That makes it look like faith is the source of everything. It certainly begs for a definition of “union”. If “union” is not effectual calling, what is “union”?

    Is it Christ’s finished work which is imputed, or is it Christ’s present resurrection status which is imputed? Is there a “not yet” aspect to justification which is conditional on what the Holy Spirit does in the sinner?

    How can God give faith apart before imputation (be it the present status or the finished work)? Why are people insisting that God cannot give imputation before faith?

    But maybe even these questions are scholastic and insignificant and meet with your disapproved, with the fly-in assumption that your own interests are both practical and important.

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87. Again, just as those who are confused about or have no place for the Holy Spirit in salvation have to come up with an alternative solution – voilà pentecostalism/charismaticism/the Second Blessing – so too those who deny Christ’s active obedience/positive fulfilling of the law, necessarily must add the Christian’s faithfulness or works to justification by faith alone. Ergo the FV.
    Nyet.

    But maybe even these questions are scholastic and insignificant and meet with your disapproved, with the fly-in assumption that your own interests are both practical and important.

    Hey, let’s not get too fly-in critical/negative.

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88. I think a see a problem here that I can help out with. First off, we don’t need to see the ordo salutis as much as “conditional” as if God is ticking off boxes to make a logical application. That appears to be looking at scripture too much from mans perspective. The way to look at it and have it be useful and understandable doctrines to us is to simply consider it an “order” , as in, this follows that. We don’t need to look at it in so much of an Arostoloian particular as we Westerners are wont to do all things, and say If we mix this and that ingredients, we get that, and then combine that outcome with that ingredient, presto, a salvation cake results.
    I like to think of the doctrine of Union with Christ as if it were a hub on a spoked wheel. It is because we are united with Christ that we receive His benefits, among which are things like justification, sanctification (both positional and active sanctification) , adoption, glorification. Rather than saying our Union is the source of our justification, I would be more apt to say Christ is the source of our justification, or even God is the source of our Justification. The active obedience of Christ is absolutely the merit of His righteousness that we who are United to Him enjoy. Case closed.

    As far as the Covenant we are under, and the one that should define our thinking, here it is:

    Hebrews 10:16 “THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THEM
    AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
    I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART,
    AND ON THEIR MIND I WILL WRITE THEM,”
    He then says, 17 “AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS
    I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”

    When I ask where is our side to fulfill of this covenant? It is not stipulated. It is not stipulated, because it is fulfilled by Christ, in whom we indeed have union with and thereby are a member of the household of God.

    I am reminded here of Calvin’s refutation of Thomas Aquinas as Thomas displayed the Augustinian fallacious argument of some being predestine to grace and predestine to glory. This of course flowed out of their erroneous views of baptismal regeneration.

    Calvin’s Institutes – Book III Chapter 22.9. Nor let us be detained by the subtlety of Thomas, that the foreknowledge of merit is the cause of predestination, not, indeed, in respect of the predestinating act, but that on our part it may in some sense be so called, namely, in respect of a particular estimate of predestination; as when it is said, that God predestinates man to glory according to his merit, inasmuch as he decreed to bestow upon him the grace by which he merits glory. For while the Lord would have us to see nothing more in election than his mere goodness, for
    any one to desire to see more is preposterous affectation.

    But were we to make a trial of subtlety, it would not be difficult to refute
    the sophistry of Thomas. He maintains that the elect are in a manner
    predestinated to glory on account of their merits, because God
    predestines to give them the grace by which they merit glory. What
    if I should, on the contrary, object that predestination to grace is
    subservient to election unto life, and follows as its handmaid; that
    grace is predestined to those to whom the possession of glory was
    previously assigned the Lord being pleased to bring his sons by
    election to justification?

    For it will hence follow that the predestination to glory is the cause of the predestination to grace,
    and not the converse. But let us have done with these disputes as
    superfluous among those who think that there is enough of wisdom for
    them in the word of God. For it has been truly said by an old
    ecclesiastical writer, Those who ascribe the election of God to
    merits, are wise above what they ought to be, (Ambrose. de Vocat.
    Gentium, lib. 1, c. 2.)

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89. MM, JT,

    the promise of eternal reward in the genesis account is generally tied to the promise of eternal sabbath as considered in Genesis in the unending seventh day and confirmed in Hebrews 4:1-10, which we enter into now by faith made possible in the second adam’s fulfillment and subsequent reward. Where Adam failed and merited death as federal head, Jesus succeeded and merited eternal life, described in both Genesis and Hebrews as entering God’s same rest from his works.

    Heb 4:1-10

    Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.[a] 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

    “As I swore in my wrath,
    ‘They shall not enter my rest,’”
    although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,

    “They shall not enter my rest.”
    6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

    “Today, if you hear his voice,
    do not harden your hearts.”
    8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God[b] would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

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90. Steve White: I like to think of the doctrine of Union with Christ as if it were a hub on a spoked wheel

    mark: well, we have all heard that before, and many books on “union’ simply repeat what the other books on “union” have said (kind of like a hub). but the question is to define ‘the doctrine of union with Christ”. Your statement wants to assume that there is one agreed upon “the doctrine of union” and that we can them proceed to ignore order of application questions and simply talk about conditionality vs unconditionality.

    While I am all for talking about the evils of salvation conditioned on the sinner, the order question cannot go away (so that we just all agree about redemptive history as basis) because folks like Tipton continue to insist not only that “union” is before “justificaiton” but also that “faith” is before “union”. So it’s not some kind of big inclusive hub after all. It turns out to be a different order, one in which the “not yet” aspect of “justification” hangs in the balance, and depends on the energies that some people in the covenant are getting from the resurrected Jesus.

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91. Sean, i think your mm means Michael Mann. At any rate, please don’t anybody associate me in your thinking with the pope or thomson. I was not taking sides with thomson against “active obedience”. I was merely saying that it makes no sense to get to that debate when you won’t talk about election or the sins of the elect being imputed to Christ.

    I do sometimes fear that all this reaction to the new perspective (Piper vs NT Wright) is a distraction from the even more important matters of the imputation of Adam’s sin and also of the imputation of the sins of the elect to Christ.

    All these famous people can endorse a book on the imputation of active obedience, but still never talk about original guilt or the wonderful good news of definite atonement. (hey, even Wesley found a way to parse words so as to talk about “Christ’s righteousness” without that meaning what Christ did for the elect. As in, we have plenty of tvs here at Wallmart, come on down and accept one.)

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92. Mark said: well, we have all heard that before, and many books on “union’ simply repeat what the other books on “union” have said (kind of like a hub).

    Steve says: Well I wonder if they figured it out on their own, read it in a prior book, or quoted one of my online statements from years back, because I have been describing it that way for a while, and have never read it anywhere. I have found that there is enough truth to think about in many key books without endless reading. I have found that one can nearly over read themselves into dumbness. Most of the great things have already been thought and said in great books by people who are already dead.

    Mark said: but the question is to define ‘the doctrine of union with Christ”. Your statement wants to assume that there is one agreed upon “the doctrine of union” and that we can them proceed to ignore order of application questions and simply talk about conditionality vs unconditionality.

    Steve says : no, I don’t care if there is disagreement. Why should I give those who are just wrong some sort of equal standing with the truth? Who cares what wrong people think? Ha! Not me.
    Again, your ‘conditionally’ thing kind of goes back to the more man centered perspective of things that emphasizes particulars, and processes as if they were part of a manufacturing process or all the right ingredients in the right order of a magic spell. Salvation is from God. He meets the “conditions” of his “processes”, if you must look at things that way.

    Mark said: While I am all for talking about the evils of salvation conditioned on the sinner, the order question cannot go away (so that we just all agree about redemptive history as basis) because folks like Tipton continue to insist not only that “union” is before “justificaiton” but also that “faith” is before “union”. So it’s not some kind of big inclusive hub after all. It turns out to be a different order, one in which the “not yet” aspect of “justification” hangs in the balance, and depends on the energies that some people in the covenant are getting from the resurrected Jesus.

    Steve Says: Well that’s sounds ok to me. God Elects, Effectually calls (grants saving faith) , through which we are united to Christ, by which we are justified (once for all), and positionally sanctified, adopted, then progressively sanctified, then glorified. Where is the problem here?
    I left out the terms Predestination, General Call, and Conversion for the sake of simplification, and I put in the term “united” for your sake. Thinking of our “union with Christ” or being “in Christ” as that indissoluble unity by which we receive all the benefits that are in Christ. Make sense?

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93. I want to follow up on a point. There is a useful amount of reading and intellectual thought, and a point where it becomes counter productive. I think there is this subtle pressure that endless information gathering is intellectually superior, but some of the most confused, vacillating and train wrecked people seem to be some of the most prolific readers. Kind of like the always learning, but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 3:7) .

    Who do we think that’s taking about? Long dead people, or could it be applied currently? If so, I think there is a warning to the endless new-scholarship that thinks that the truth is right around the corner in the next book one reads. If you haven’t found enough to fill your life with boundless intellectual thought in the Word of God, and things written by great Reformed thinkers who have already died, then you need to go back and take another look for truth back there.

    I’m not saying not to read a current book, but there seems to be a displaced amount of value placed on some sort of new thought.

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94. Here is some Calvin speaking on Union with Christ being the ground for hope, assurance, and certainty of faith.

    Institutes III: ii: 24:

    “Here, however, we give no countenance to that most pestilential philosophy which some semi-papists are at present beginning to broach in corners. Unable to defend the gross doubt inculcated by the Schoolmen, they have recourse to another fiction, that they may compound a mixture of faith and unbelief. They admit, that whenever we look to Christ we are furnished with full ground for hope; but as we are ever unworthy of all the blessings which are offered us in Christ, they will have us to fluctuate and hesitate in the view of our unworthiness.

    In short, they give conscience a position between hope and fear, making it alternate, by successive turns, to the one and the other. Hope and fear, again, they place in complete contrast, – the one falling as the other rises, and rising as the other falls. Thus Satan, finding the devices by which he was wont to destroy the certainty of faith too manifest to be now of any avail, is endeavoring, by indirect methods, to undermine it. But what kind of confidence is that which is ever and anon supplanted by despair? They tell you, if you look to Christ salvation is certain; if you return to yourself damnation is certain. Therefore, your mind must be alternately ruled by diffidence and hope; as if we were to imagine Christ standing at a distance, and not rather dwelling in us.

    We expect salvation from him – not because he stands aloof from us, but because ingrafting us into his body he not only makes us partakers of all his benefits, but also of himself. Therefore, I thus retort the argument, If you look to yourself damnation is certain: but since Christ has been communicated to you with all his benefits, so that all which is his is made yours, you become a member of him, and hence one with him.

    His righteousness covers your sins – his salvation extinguishes your condemnation; he interposes with his worthiness, and so prevents your unworthiness from coming into the view of God. Thus it truly is. It will never do to separate Christ from us, nor us from him; but we must, with both hands, keep firm hold of that alliance by which he has riveted us to himself. This the Apostle teaches us: “The body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness,” (Rom. 8: 10.) According to the frivolous trifling of these objectors, he ought to have said, Christ indeed has life in himself, but you, as you are sinners, remain liable to death and condemnation.

    Very different is his language. He tells us that the condemnation which we of ourselves deserve is annihilated by the salvation of Christ; and to confirm this he employs the argument to which I have referred, viz., that Christ is not external to us, but dwells in us; and not only unites us to himself by an undivided bond of fellowship, but by a wondrous communion brings us daily into closer connection, until he becomes altogether one with us. And yet I deny not, as I lately said, that faith occasionally suffers certain interruptions when, by violent assault, its weakness is made to bend in this direction or in that; and its light is buried in the thick darkness of temptation. Still happen what may, faith ceases not to long after God.”

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95. Steve Says: Well that’s sounds ok to me. God Elects, Effectually calls (grants saving faith) , through which we are united to Christ, by which we are justified (once for all).

    WCF XI –
    I. Those whom God effectually calls, He also freely justifies; 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; nor by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

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96. Steve,

    The order of salvation is crucial to a correct understanding of salvation. And nothing against new thoughts, but when it comes to the gospel proper, new thoughts do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, but must be carefully scrutinized and critiqued As to a right order – especially the importance of sanctification as the result of justification and not simply duel benefits whose order is unimportant, or subsumed under union, see Warfield below:

    “There is no evidence presented here that the New Testament represents sanctification as received immediately by faith. In point of fact there is no direct statement to that effect in the New Testament. It is to Jellinghaus’* credit that he does not adduce for it either Acts xv.9 or xxvi.18, which are often made to do duty in this sense. His strong conviction that sanctification is obtained directly and immediately by faith is a product not of his Scriptural studies, but of his ‘mediating theology.’ According to that theology, when we receive Christ by faith we receive in Him all that He is to us at once; all the benefits which we receive in Him are conceived as received immediately and directly by the faith through which we are united with Him and become sharers in all that He is. Justification and sanctification, for example, are thought of as parallel products of faith. This is not, however, the New Testament representation. According to its teaching, sanctification is not related to faith directly and immediately, so that in believing in Jesus we receive both justification and sanctification as parallel products of our faith; or either the one or the other, according as our faith is directed to the one or the other. Sanctification is related directly not to faith but to justification; and as faith is the instrumental cause of justification, so is justification the instrumental cause of sanctification. The vinculum which binds justification and sanctification together is not that they are both effects of faith – so that he who believes must have both – because faith is the prius of both alike. Nor is it even that both are obtained in Christ, so that he who has Christ, who is made to us both righteousness and sanctification, must have both because Christ is the common source of both. It is true that he who has faith has and must have both; and it is true that he who has Christ has and must have both. But they do not come out of faith or from Christ in the same way. Justification comes through faith; sanctification through justification, and only mediately, through justification, through faith. So that the order is invariable, faith, justification, sanctification; not arbitrarily, but in the nature of the case.” (B. B. Warfield, “The German Higher Life Movement,” in Perfectionism, vol. 1, pp. 362-363) –

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97. Jack,

    Not seeing an inconsistency there. You are making distinctions without a difference. When we are United with Christ, imputation of all that is Christ is in or of us. We are a new creation in Christ. In other words when we are in Christ (united to Christ), what is true of him is true of us. We are even seated with him in heaven right now somehow. (Eph 2:6).

    All the WCOF text did was argue everything I have been saying.

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98. There’s no mention of ‘union’ effecting justification in the WFC.

    When does God impute the obedience and satisfaction of Christ to the elect? Adam’s sin was imputed to all of mankind including me, even before I received it through physical birth. That sin, it would seem was imputed upon Adam’s fall. Was Christ’s obedience and satisfaction thus imputed to the elect upon the completion of his redemptive work, i.e. paying for our sins and fulfilling the covenant of works as the second Adam?

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99. Todd, thanks for that.

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100. I think the ‘union’ doctrine needs to be understood in light of Christ as our federal head. There is union in election before times eternal in that we were chosen ‘in him.’

     Steve, I’m not claiming an inconsistency. I’m simply making note of the fact that the word ‘union’ doesn’t appear in what I quoted from WCF. All the benefits received by the believer are certainly in light of our union with Christ. I just don’t see union as a point in time that is the cause of our imputation or justification. Seems more like its the water we are in, or the atmosphere that surrounds the elect. That is not say that there isn’t a moment in time when through faith we are personally united to Christ. Indeed there is. Christ is ours (in time) because we are his (from before time)…

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101. todd said: The order of salvation is crucial to a correct understanding of salvation. And nothing against new thoughts, but when it comes to the gospel proper, new thoughts do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, but must be carefully scrutinized and critiqued As to a right order – especially the importance of sanctification as the result of justification and not simply duel benefits whose order is unimportant, or subsumed under union, see Warfield below

     Steve Says: Well, can you show me where I implied that the ordo salutis was not crucial to understanding salvation? I even gave an ordo salutis, so you’re welcome.

     Also, not that it really matters, but I think Warfield makes a mistake here by when talking about sanctification. He argues it as an either / or thing, and if you will note, I distinguished both a positional sanctification and a progressive sanctification.

     I don’t do this jut to harmonize his points, as opposed to the points of the guy he was disagreeing with, but because clearly scripture speaks of sanctification in the past tense, and also in the present tense. Think of it like this: If sanctification is being made more and more into the image of Christ, then certainly there is a massive image makeover at conversion (positional sanctification), then an ongoing and progressive makeover (progressive sanctification.

     Again, pretty straight forward stuff. Still not seeing what all the confusion is about.

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102. Jack said: I think the ‘union’ doctrine needs to be understood in light of Christ as our federal head. There is union in election before times eternal in that we were chosen ‘in him.’

     yikes! I would argue that you are flat out wrong on that one Jack. You might want to rethink that. There is a term I hate, because it besmirches a good name, but didn’t this view you just stated used to be called Hyper Calvinism?

     Jesus died on a cross 2000 years ago. I was not there, and that atonement may have been earned, but was not applied to me until about 1983 years later. Union with Christ is not eternal. Election is, but his electing to save me in the future does not mean that I was through space and time, united to Christ in that mere foreknowledge and decision.

     Think of our own presidential elections. The election occurs, but the installment as president doesn’t happen till the future, January sometime I believe. Don’t confuse the surety of God’s choices with the space/time reality. The decision is made form all eternity, but the reality does not occur until His timing.

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103. Steve,

     The issue is not whether there is such a thing as definitive sanctification, it is whether sanctification must be the result of justification and not both simply duel benefits of union. And your comment that “through which we are united to Christ, by which we are justified (once for all), and positionally sanctified, adopted, then progressively sanctified, then glorified…” is not really an order, as far as justification and sanctification are concerned, but just stating that those two benefits are received though union.

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104. Don’t be so quick with the “hyper” word. Not one person in this thread (as you would know if you read it) is advocating any kind of “eternal justification”. We are talking about the order of application, the legal imputation to the elect of what Christ has obtained in redemptive history for the elect.

     Mark mcculley
     Posted September 12, 2013 at 7:38 am | Permalink
     Tipton discusses Berkhof’s idea that something called ” active justification” precedes effectual calling and faith. I do not agree with either the idea of some objective “active justification”. or the idea of “eternal justification” .

     I don’t think we should equivocate with the word “justify”, so that sometimes we read it as “before our conscience” and other times we read it as “legally real before the tribunal of God”. When God imputed Christ’s righteousness to Abraham before Abraham was circumcised, that imputation of God was not a “fiction” but a legal sharing at that time which immediately resulted in Abraham’s effectual calling, believing the gospel, and justification.

     Bavinck: When the Scriptures say of this justification in “a concrete sense” that it takes place by and through faith, then it does not intend to say that it is produced and wrought through that faith, since Jesus Christ is all our righteousness and all benefits of grace are the fruits of his labor and of his labor alone; they are entirely contained in his person and are not in any need of any addition on our part.

     The terminology, that “active justification” takes place “unto” and “passive justification” through faith may have some value against nomism; BUT THE SCRIPTURAL LANGAUGE IS ENTIRELY ADEQUATE PROVIDED IT IS UNDERSTOOD SCRIPTURALLY. .

     Bavinck: Many have in later years, when the confessional power of the Reformation weakened, entered the way of self-examination, in order to be assured of the sincerity of their faith and their salvation. It is not we who approach the judgment of God, with the sincerity of our faith, in order to receive there the forgiveness of our sins; God does not sit in judgment by himself in heaven to hear the parties and to pronounce sentence, God himself comes to us in the gospel.

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105. Todd said: The issue is not whether there is such a thing as definitive sanctification, it is whether sanctification must be the result of justification and not both simply duel benefits of union. And your comment that “through which we are united to Christ, by which we are justified (once for all), and positionally sanctified, adopted, then progressively sanctified, then glorified…” is not really an order, as far as justification and sanctification are concerned, but just stating that those two benefits are received though union.

     Steve Says: Really? It seems pretty clear that Christ is the source of all that we have in Christ. The benefits of Christ are not the source of other benefits of Christ. I already sad Warfield was wrong with that theory of his. In fact, It’s a pretty pathetic piece of NT scholarship by the well thought of Princeton theologian. It it he defines two views, either sanctification must happen immediately by faith, or following justification, by justification. He declares the first view to be non scriptural.

     What I pointed out was his error in view of sanctification. He declares the first view as scriptural , adn the second as scriptural, when I claim his whole view of sanctification is screwed up.

     Let’s look at some scripture on sanctification, looking at the tenses, either past, or present.

     First past tense, definitive.

     1 Corinthians 6:11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

     1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

     Hebrews 2:11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,

     Then Present or ongoing (progressive) :

     Hebrews 10:14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

     1 Thessalonians 5:23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

     It is a significant point that Warfield is just wrong about his view on sanctification in general before we even get to this point if he is right about what precedes sanctification, either union with Christ (which he sloppily simply deems faith) or justification, which he argues that sanctification comes out of, as if it begets it.

     It is no wonder people reading this stuff get so confused.

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106. Mark said: Don’t be so quick with the “hyper” word. Not one person in this thread (as you would know if you read it) is advocating any kind of “eternal justification”. We are talking about the order of application, the legal imputation to the elect of what Christ has obtained in redemptive history for the elect.

     Steve Says: ha! no need for drama. It might have been better if what you describe were stated “eternal justification” rather than what error was stated “eternal union”. all kinds of error could come out of that, including a view that union with Christ can be undone, or that Christ will be with some people in hell…

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107. Slow down Steve… nothing hyper-Calvinistic about the truth that the elect were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. This eternal decree was solid. You and I were chosen, foreordained in Christ. Therefore we, by God’s gracious counsel, were identified with Christ before we were yet born. That is all I mean by understanding union in light of Christ as our federal head. The Father gave the Son a certain number of elect whom the Son would redeem in time and who, in time (i.e. in their own lifetimes), would be effectually called, justified, and glorified.

     It’s back to Mark McCully’s point – we need to define ‘union’ when using the term and not just assume it means only a spiritual union effected by the Holy Spirit upon belief.

     Steve wrote: “Jesus died on a cross 2000 years ago. I was not there, and that atonement may have been earned, but was not applied to me until about 1983 years later”

     Amen. Nor did I claim anything to the contrary. Where is any mention of atonement in my comment? But, I will add, emphasizing what I wrote above. You weren’t there in eternity past either when God chose you in Christ. Yet it was then that God irrevocably identified you in the Beloved as one who would be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

     From an article by Fesko – Owen on Union and Justification – regarding election, imputation, justification, and union:

     “Scripture shows that the Father and Son agreed to redeem the elect. Owen believes this agreement was covenantal in nature. Within these basic characteristics are the ground of Owen’s doctrines of union with Christ and justification…”

     “The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is not something that the believer earns through their obedience but is something he received-something that has been agreed upon in a mutual covenant between the Father and the Son in eternity past, long before the believer ever existed. For Owen, though, this covenant in eternity past is not merely a bald choice by God but rather involves a number of different doctrinal loci, Christology, pneumatology, soteriology, as well as their subsets, such as union with Christ and the ordo salutis. The doctrine of the pactum salutis provides the answer as to how Owen gives ultimate priority to the forensic and proximate priority to union with Christ. For Owen, the ground of redemption is found in the imputed righteousness of Christ.”
     http://thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/john_owen_on_union_with_christ_and_justification

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108. Jack said: Slow down Steve… nothing hyper-Calvinistic about the truth that the elect were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. This eternal decree was solid. You and I were chosen, foreordained in Christ. Therefore we, by God’s gracious counsel, were identified with Christ before we were yet born.

     Steve says: Now Jack, you are the one who needs to slow down. Words mean things, and you clearly were defining an idea of an “eternal union” when you said this: “There is union in election before times eternal in that we were chosen ‘in him.’”

     I’m not sure if it was just a really sloppy use of theological terminology, or an active attempt to deceptively push an agenda, but it’s playing a little fast and loose with the text. Perhaps you should take your own advice, and slow down, and pray about and be more careful with things you try to convince people are true.

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109. Steve says: Now Jack, you are the one who needs to slow down. Words mean things, and you clearly were defining an idea of an “eternal union” when you said this: “There is union in election before times eternal in that we were chosen ‘in him.’”

     Me: Steve, they’re your words – “eternal union” – not mine. So I wasn’t defining a term that you later introduce, a definition you assume I was making. I qualified my sentence, “There is union in election before times eternal in that we were chosen ‘in him.,” with the preceding sentence, “I think the ‘union’ doctrine needs to be understood in light of Christ as our federal head,” on which I elaborated on in my follow up comments. I make no assertion of mystical union or material union with Christ eternally . Rather union in light of God’s decree of election and the covenant of redemption. “Before times eternal” is the ‘when’ of election in my sentence, and in no way means eternal election or eternal union.

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110. Jack said: Me: Steve, they’re your words – “eternal union” – not mine. So I wasn’t defining a term that you later introduce, a definition you assume I was making. I qualified my sentence, “There is union in election before times eternal in that we were chosen ‘in him.,” with the preceding sentence, “I think the ‘union’ doctrine needs to be understood in light of Christ as our federal head,” on which I elaborated on in my follow up comments. I make no assertion of mystical union or material union with Christ eternally . Rather union in light of God’s decree of election and the covenant of redemption. “Before times eternal” is the ‘when’ of election in my sentence, and in no way means eternal election or eternal union.

     Steve Says: I can’t compete with that kind of imagination. I’m into scripture, theology, logic, reason, etc… This stuff is too off the rails for me…

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111. Steve,

     Jack, in distinguishing legal union that exists in eternity and mystical union which is applied in time as a result of saving faith, is speaking standard theological language.

     (Louis Berkhof – Systematic, pg. 452)

     “It is sometimes said that the merits of Christ cannot be imputed to us as long as we are not in Christ, since it is only on the basis of our oneness with Him that such an imputation could be reasonable. But this view fails to distinguish between our legal unity with Christ and our spiritual oneness with Him, and is a falsification of the fundamental element in the doctrine of redemption, namely, of the doctrine of justification. “

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112. Steve, if it makes you feel good, then by all means snark away…

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113. David Mathis, introduction to Acting the Miracle: God’s Work and Ours in the Mystery of Sanctification, p 18

     “Then have we found out silver bullet? Might union with Christ be the holy grail? Here’s the hitch. Union with Christ ends up being a very nondescript way of talking….It’s a glorious generality, but it doesn’t carry inherently the specificity of its various aspects–regeneration, justification, sanctification, adoption, glorification.”

     mark: Since I tend to go with the many vs the one, I would prefer saying “unions” instead of “aspects of the union”. But I agree with the main point, the lack of specific definition. And of course I think there is a good solution to this “union confusion”, which is to stop saying “union” and say what the Bible says–either in Christ, or Christ in us.

     unionist— I also gave you an order of salvation

     but you first said—- “union” is above (or below) all the other “aspects”

     but now you say—- faith is before “union”

     confusing self-contradiction—saying “union” is not in the order but then putting faith before union

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