Lane Keister responds to Roman Catholic criticisms that justification by faith alone depends on an understanding of the imputed righteousness of Christ that turns salvation into a “legal fiction” — we are righteous but not really because, in the words of John Kinnaird, it is not real and personal.
That post got me wondering about what Rome does with the transfer of sin from Adam to the human race. So what do Roman Catholics — or Protestants who insist on real and personal holiness — teach about the sin of Adam imputed to new born infants? Is it a legal fiction to view them as sinners (as Paul does Rom 5:12 — “all sinned”)? After all, the Council of Orange affirmed original sin this way:
CANON 2. If anyone asserts that Adam’s sin affected him alone and not his descendants also, or at least if he declares that it is only the death of the body which is the punishment for sin, and not also that sin, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man to the whole human race, he does injustice to God and contradicts the Apostle, who says, “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom. 5:12).
Likewise, the Baltimore Catechism affirms that Adam’s sin affected all mankind:
45. Q. What evil befell us through the disobedience of our first parents? A. Through the disobedience of our first parents we all inherit their sin and punishment, as we should have shared in their happiness if they had remained faithful.
And even more recently, John Paul II taught some kind of “fiction” when it came to the affects of Adam’s sin on the rest of the human race:
How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”. By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” – a state and not an act.
I understand that neither of these catechisms use the language of imputation, though the notion of inheritance is in the forensic Friday ball park. Even so, the magisterium has some explaining to do if you can swallow the idea that humans come into the world with the guilt of Adam’s sinful estate and then object to Protestants drawing a line between the imputation of Adam’s sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. If you want to be a Pelagian about sin, fine. But if you don’t want to be Pelagian about depravity, then don’t be semi-Pelagian about justification.
Old Life 
Nothing you have written refutes anything I have ever written or said.
Nor does it refute Roman Catholic dogma or Tradition–aka “the Truth.”
(But I repeat myself.)
In the logic of Bryan,
RL Keener, channeling Bryan Cross
LikeLike
Being the “federalist” that I am I do not agree with the “realism” of John Calvin’s discussion of original sin. Calvin’s commentary on Romans 5:12 explains our relation to Adam in terms of Adam’s extending his corruption to us, so that it is this corruption which constitutes our guilt in the matter of Adam’s sin. Calvin seems to reject the doctrine of original guilt in the sense of our responsibility for Adam’s deed of disobedience.
There are indeed some who contend, that we are so lost through Adam’s sin, as though we perished through no fault of our own, but only, because he had sinned for us. But Paul distinctly affirms, that sin extends to all who suffer its punishment… to sin in this case is to become corrupt and vicious; for the natural depravity which we bring from our mother’s womb, though it brings not forth immediately its own fruits, is yet sin before God, and deserves his vengeance: and this is that sin which they call original.
Calvin describes a “difference between Christ and Adam”—-By Adam’s sin we are not condemned through imputation alone, as though we were punished only for the sin of another; but we suffer his punishment, because we also ourselves are guilty; for as our nature is vitiated in him, it is regarded by God as having committed sin.
For Calvin, the race becomes guilty for Adam’s transgression only by sharing in Adam’s depraved nature.. The punishment for Adam was, in part, the immediate corruption of his nature. But this is the nature of all his posterity (Christ excepted). All of Adam’s posterity are held responsible for the corrupted nature. Not legal representation by a covenant head, but involvement in a corporate nature renders the race guilty before God. I am not responsible for Adam’s disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit. But I am responsible for the sinful nature with which God punished Adam for his act of disobedience.
LikeLike
Here is a case where there is a good discontinuity and “development” in the theology of Reformed “federalists” who came after Calvin.
If I am not legally guilty for Adam’s act of disobedience, with what right does God punish me — not Adam, but me — with a totally depraved nature? According to Calvin Adam’s headship consisted only of his depraving the human nature of which all partake. Adam’s headship was not the headship of legal representation. According to Calvin, Adam did not stand in such a covenantal relation to all humanity, that, altogether apart from the consequent corrupting of the nature, all are responsible before God for Adam’s act of disobedience.
Calvin’s explanation of the headship of Adam COULD be taken to mean that Christ’s headship also consists only of His being the source of righteousness to His people by actually INFUSING it into them. If Adam’s headship was not legal representation, neither is Christ’s headship legal representation. But this destroys the fundamental gospel-truth of justification as the imputation of Christ’s death as satisfaction of the guilt of the elect.
In his commentary on Romans 5:17 Calvin proposes a “difference between Christ and Adam.” “By Adam’s sin we are not condemned through imputation alone,” but “through the righteousness of Christ we are restored in a different way to salvation.” But Romans does not teach such a “difference “As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom. 5:18). In verse 19, the apostle states that the disobedience of the one man resulted in many sinners. The verb translated “made” by the King James Version does not mean “made” in the sense of causing people actually to become sinful. Rather, it means “constituted” in the sense of a legal standing of guilt before God the judge. By one man’s disobedience many were judicially declared sinners.
LikeLike
Gaffin in defense of Kinnard—-so far as the Romans 2 passage is concerned, while a large number of Reformed exegetes have understood the scenario there, the final judgment scenario there, on the positive side, in verse 7 and 10 and 13. Have understood that in a hypothetical sense – or as we might put it – as a genuine offer of the law – not the gospel – a genuine offer of the law as a means of justification, or salvation which no one, in fact, can fulfill.
Gaffin— While that is an established reformed understanding, there have also been other exegetes, within the reformed tradition, that have questioned that hypothetical understanding. And you see that at least for verses 6 to 11 very clearly in John Murray’s Romans commentary. . Because Paul is focused in our salvation on our union with the exalted Christ – without at all confusing justification and sanctification – without Paul in any way ever confusing the forensic and the renovative aspects of our salvation – he sees them together. He sees them together – I dare say- more easily and inseparably than has often been the case within Evangelical and Reformed tradition. I would say this is a tendency that is more seen in Lutheran theology than in Reformed theology but it is also present in Reformed theology.
Gaffin– Observe that in the matter of our sanctification, there is a tendency that we must confront within those of us who are children of the reformation. It may be more of a practical tendency, but it is also theoretical. And that is the tendency to view the Gospel – to view salvation almost exclusively in terms of justification. To equate the Gospel and justification. See on this view, sanctification is then most often categorized as an expression of gratitude from our side for our justification, our forgiveness. Usually then with the attendant accent on the imperfection and the inadequacy of our expressions of our gratitude….. No question about it. Indwelling sin is a reality for the believer. But that indwelling sin is not my lord. I am no longer, I am not any longer it’s slave. In fact, sanctification is a part of, it’s an aspect and outcome of the reality of a resurrection that the believer has already experienced. That’s it’s definitive aspect. We have already been raised with Christ and being united to Christ. And it’s ongoing, progressive realization has no deeper perspective from which it can be viewed than this. .. Ultimately, a statement that I read a number of years back by G.C. Berkhower has proved so helpful to me in all the matters we have been talking about. This is from his book, On Faith and Sanctification and he puts it this way, “Ultimately, in the biblical sense, the way of good works is not the way of man to God, but the way of God to man and with man.”
LikeLike
Darryl,
“Even so, the magisterium has some explaining to do if you can swallow the idea that humans come into the world with the guilt of Adam’s sinful estate and then object to Protestants drawing a line between the imputation of Adam’s sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.”
Are humans truly inherently actually guilty and in a fallen deprived state, or only counted as such? Is Adam’s sin imputed to you in the same way Christ’s righteousness is? When God judges the reprobate, is he viewing Adam’s unrighteousness as a cover for the reprobate and judging based on that, analogous to Horton’s illustration of the believer at judgment under cover of Christ’s righteousness – http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_0AOsJWKXHBM/SLm1ArDxciI/AAAAAAAAAkY/PvyBiH5TjSg/s1600/SimulIustusEtPeccator.jpg
I assume you will say no, so the comparison fails – in RCism the reprobate and elect are both viewed as they actually are; there are no curtains or “as if’s”.
“But if you don’t want to be Pelagian about depravity, then don’t be semi-Pelagian about justification.”
You’re going to need to explain how a denial of extra nos imputation in justification necessitates semi-pelagianism. In doing so, please don’t end up redefining semi-Pelagianism.
LikeLike
The legal is not less than real. And the guilt imputed is not more than legal. I quote from three baptists who were federalists.
Pink on Romans 5—-The Greek word for “made” (kathistemi) never signifies to effect any change in a person or thing but means “to ordain, appoint,” to “constitute” legally or officially … Note well that it is not here said that Adam’s disobedience makes us unholy. Paul goes farther back and explains why such should follow, namely, because we are first constituted sinners by imputation.
John Gill on Romans 5—Nor is the sense of the phrase, “made sinners by one man’s disobedience” that Adam’s posterity derive a corrupt nature from him, through his sin. This is indeed a truth, but not the truth of this passage … There is a difference between being “made” sinners and “becoming” sinful, the one respects the guilt, the other the pollution of nature: the one is previous to the other and the foundation of it; men receive a corrupt nature from their immediate parents, but they are not made sinners by any act or acts of their disobedience.
Robert Haldane on Romans 5—It is essential to observe that when it is here said that by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners there is no reference to the commission of sin, or to our proneness to it from our innate corruption. The reference is exclusively to its guilt … Paul does not mean that through the disobedience of one many were rendered depraved and addicted to the commission of sin, but that they became guilty of sin … the term sinners has no reference to the pollution, indwelling or actual commission of sin, or the transmission of a corrupt nature…
LikeLike
Asking whether or not something is a legal fiction is like asking, if Bryan Cross stands alone in the wilderness identifying logical fallacies, does a bird poop on his flat capped head?
LikeLike
foxy lady, “Are humans truly inherently actually guilty and in a fallen deprived state, or only counted as such?”
Well, if they wind up in purgatory or hell, is it actual or only counted as such?
As for semi-pelagianism, Rome is on the fall. And it is on salvation. No direct affirmation of imputation on the former. Lots of grace plus in the latter (except for Francis who believes everyone is going to heaven).
LikeLike
Erik Charter:
This is too deep to contemplate, and too awesome for words.
LikeLike
Lane Tipton, Biblical Theology and the Westminster standards,” Westminster Theological Journal, 2013 —“the transaction of imputation is situated within the broader REALITY of union by Christ by Spirit-wrought faith.”
mcmark: Would God’s imputation not be real if it resulted in the Spirit’s work? Is the Spirit’s work more real than God’s imputation of the merits of Christ’s work? Tipton assumes that there can be no “imputation-union” but only a ‘faith-union”. On the one hand, if you keep the notion “broad” (and undefined) enough, then you can say the order of application does not matter. But then on the other hand, it turns our that the order is important, because “union” has to come before God’s imputation. It also turns out that “union” needs to be ‘concrete” and that turns out to mean that “union” is by the Holy Spirit, and according to Tipton, dogmatically NOT “union by imputation”.
Ask yourself two questions about Tipton’s conclusion. First, is this Confessional language? Is his order the way the Confession says it? Second, is saying it this way the only way to say it, or even the best way to say it? Do we need to be dogmatic in the way Tipton has been about ‘faith-union” being the meaning of “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.”
mcmark: 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 effectual calling and the resulting faith.
Sure there’s NO need to make the benefit of justification be the cause of God’s imputation of the righteousness. But there IS every reason to say that God’s imputation is the “judicial ground” by which the elect are identified with Christ and by which Christ comes to indwell the elect.
Tipton, p 11—“It is not MERELY in the atoning death of Christ that we find the judicial ground for the believer’s justification. 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.”
mcmark—I disagree. Our faith does not impute the righteousness. Nor does God wait for our faith as a “covenant condition” before God can impute Christ’s righteousness.
What is imputed? According to Gaffin and Tipton it’s not “merely’ the finished work which is imputed. It’s not “merely” the merits of Christ’s past obedience. According to Gaffin and Tipton , the justified status of Christ is imputed. They have not denied the imputation of Christ’s finished work. When they say “not merely that”, they are saying “that’s included also”.
The “faith-unionists” are catholic enough not to deny forensic imputation, but also “realistic” enough to include other “concrete realities” like the work of the Spirit transforming and renovating (“definitively”!) us so that one day we also can be justified the same way Christ was, which was by the reality of the Holy Spirit’s work
If you make regeneration the reality behind our present justification then you will also make our disposition and our works the reality behind the “not-yet aspect of our justification”.
LikeLike
Darryl,
“foxy lady, “Are humans truly inherently actually guilty and in a fallen deprived state, or only counted as such?”
Well, if they wind up in purgatory or hell, is it actual or only counted as such?”
It’d be nice if you actually answered questions to defend your posts. Clark linked to it – maybe he can pinch hit (at least you don’t filter comments). So, again, is Horton’s cartoon illustrating how the elect are viewed at judgment with Christ’s imputed righteousness analogous to how the reprobate is viewed with Adam’s unrighteousness? If not, as said earlier, the comparison fails – in RCism the reprobate and elect are both viewed as they actually are; there are no curtains or “as if’s”.
“As for semi-pelagianism, Rome is on the fall. And it is on salvation. No direct affirmation of imputation on the former. Lots of grace plus in the latter (except for Francis who believes everyone is going to heaven).”
First, There’s no “grace plus” – see CCC paras 1996-2001 and 2022. Secondly, you still haven’t explained why denial of extra nos imputation necessitates SP. SPism was not concerned with cooperation or resistability of grace. You cited Orange above – Schaff and Warfield and Sproul all say Orange condemned SPism – Orange did not condemn cooperation/resistability of grace nor affirm extra nos imputation. That’s why Warfield ended up saying Orange opened the door for semi-semi-Pelagianism which starts to get silly, but at least he realized he wasn’t warranted in redefining SPism for his purposes.
LikeLike
Marcus Johnson, One With Christ (Crossway, 2013)
Johnson: Many have assumed that justification is a synthetic declaration that takes into account no prior relationship of the believer to the person of Christ. p 92
mark: The “unionists” assume that justification is a legal fiction (as if) unless it’s an analytic declaration that takes into account an already existing personal relationship to Christ. They don’t talk about justification of the ungodly, but only about a justification of those united to Christ
Johnson: Justification is a legal benefit of a personal reality.
mark: The personal indwelling of Christ is a benefit of the legal reality of God’s imputation.
Johnson: God justifies us because we are joined to Christ.
mark: God joins us to Christ when God imputes to us (while we are ungodly) the righteousness of Christ. God joins us to Christ because God imputes to us the death of Christ.
Johnson: Berkhof thinks that justification cannot be the result of any existing condition in the sinner, not even an intimate, vital, spiritual, person union with Christ. This strikes me as enormously confusing. p 97
mark: Johnson thinks that both the atonement and justification are fictions unless the incarnation means that all sinners are already in some kind of union with Christ before legal imputation. This strikes me as an universalism which removes the reality of God’s justice in giving Christ as a propitiation for sins legally imputed.
Johnson: What exactly is this union which can be REDUCED to either justification or the results of justification? p 98
mark: What is the reality of God’s imputation of righteousness to the ungodly elect if it’s not real apart from some other previous (and more than merely legal) connection?
LikeLike
foxy lady, yes, I’m guilty for Adam’s sin. Comparison succeeds.
By implication, Orange did condemn spsm. But it wasn’t as direct at Trent’s condemnation of Protestantism. But heck, Protestants now have a lot of the truth.
Or how about Muslims?
I’m not sure I should have great confidence in what you say the church says, or for that matter in what your church says. Seems squishy.
LikeLike
Darryl,
“foxy lady, yes, I’m guilty for Adam’s sin. Comparison succeeds.”
So when God judges the reprobate, is he condemning them based on what they are and their actual personal unrighteousness, or just how he views them through Adam? Is Adam’s unrighteousness covering them and God bases his verdict solely on that? If no, comparison fails.
“By implication, Orange did condemn spsm”
Great, so to show Trent/CCC teaches SPism, you’d have to show Trent/CCC contradicts Orange in the areas of grace in salvation. Perhaps you could but if you can’t or don’t feel inclined, then we can drop the Rome is SP caricature.
LikeLike
foxy lady, damned if you do and damned if you don’t sin — that’s the wonder of original sin. Try being Augustinian sometime — you know, concupiscence?
What does it matter what Trent or Orange taught? None of your theologians pay attention. Why do you?
LikeLike
Dr. Hart,
You’ve forgotten that for RCism, concupiscence isn’t sin. Those animal passions are part of God’s creation, warring against our reason. You know, instead of being created good like the Bible says, we’re created as beings divided against ourselves, ever trying to master our baser instincts.
Oh, and remember, it doesn’t matter if Rome’s theologians pay attention to the past. Nothing they say can be shown to be inconsistent with the paradigm of former-Protestants-turned-RCs and those who think taking 10,000,000,000 words to say “begging the question, nyah, nyah, nyah” is impressive.
LikeLike
Robert, I was thinking of Augustine but he wasn’t Roman Catholic. You’re right.
LikeLike
Gavin Ortlund on Warfield on Augustine:
Warfield is not, however, blind to other aspects of Augustine’s thought which seem to stand at odds with this interpretation: his complex sacramentology, complete with doctrines of baptismal regeneration, a sacrificial understanding of Mass, and an ex opere operato understanding of sacramental efficacy; his hierarchical ecclesiology, complete with a doctrine of the papacy, belief in the authority of the church, and an understanding of the visible church as God’s kingdom on earth; and his doctrines of saintly intercession, purgatory, penance, and the perpetual virginity of Mary; in short, a theology which birthed medieval Roman Catholicism.
GO: But for Warfield this part of Augustine’s thought as bequeathed to him from his predecessors, taken over unquestioningly by Augustine, not the theology springing up naturally and internally from within him. He sees these two aspects of Augustine’s theology, his doctrine of grace and his doctrine of the church, as competing with each other, “two children … struggling in the womb of his mind” (322) – but it is the former which is the real Augustine. In fact, Warfield claims that Augustine’s theology of grace would have, given enough time, taken over and cleansed his ecclesiology, with the resultant effect that Augustine would have handed down “a thoroughly worked out system of evangelical theology” (322), not the contradictions and unresolved problems that are part of his legacy. That it did not, that for Warfield these two aspects of Augustine’s thought continued to rend the church for another millennium, is evident in his definition of the Reformation as “the triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church” (383).
http://gavinortlund.com/2012/02/26/warfield-on-augustine-1-augustine-and-protestantism/
mcmark: You can be Augustinian and not know or believe the gospel of justification by Christ’s righteousness. You can be predestinarian and teach that God predestines the elect to be justified by works. Not being Pelagian (or semi-Pelagian) is necessary but not sufficient for believing the gospel.
LikeLike
Robert Reymond, Systematic Theology, p 754—-The Protestant doctrine calls into question the salvation of millions of Christians throughout history. This group would include, we are informed, such church fathers as Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas who as sacerdotalists believed in baptismal regeneration and, because they confused justification and sanctification, believed also in the necessity of deeds of penance for salvation.
Reymond: This argument however is aimed not so much at Protestantism’s “rigidity” as it is against Paul’s insistence that there is only one gospel, and that any other “gospel” is not the gospel, that those who teach any other “gospel” stand under God’s anathema (Galatians 1:8-9), and that those who rely to any degree on their works for salvation nullify the grace of God (Romans 11:5-6), make void the cross work of Christ (Galatians 2:21, 5:2), and become debtors to keep the entire law and are under the curse of the law.
Reymond: It is neither my nor their defenders’ place to assure the Christian world that surely God justified them by faith alone even though they themselves did not hold to a faith alone view of justification. I will not speculate but I will say that our attitude should, with Paul, ever be: “Let God’s truth be inviolate, though EVERY man becomes thereby a liar. ” (Romans 3:4) The clear teaching of the Word should be upheld and we should not look for reasons to avoid it, even if the alternative would force us to conclude that these fathers–and all others like them—were not saved.
LikeLike
new school, Bushnell—“The child’s very first choice could be for the right as well as for the wrong…Children born of parents already pious must be Christians by nature.”
John Owen—“Unless the guilt of man’s sin was imputed to Christ, sin was not imputed to him in any sense, because the punishment of sin is not sin—-therefore there can be no punishment but with respect to the guilt of sin personally imputed.” 5:204
1. Christ did not die for the non-elect, because Christ was not their federal representative.
2. Christ did not die in order to condemn the non-elect.
3. The non-elect were already condemned.
4. Christ did not ascend to heaven for the sake of the non-elect.
5. Christ did not become incarnate for the sake of the non-elect.
LikeLike
Nathaniel Emmons, new school—-“”I know that some Calvinists maintain that the first act of Adam is imputed to his posterity, that sinners are under natural inability to turn from sin to holiness, and that Christ Himself made atonement for the elect only. I grant that these are gross absurdities which must be pared off from true Calvinism. Accordingly, modern Calvinists readily surrender their formerly untenable outposts, and now find it easier to defend their citadel….”
Tim Keller to the people of New York: “we know what the answer is not. It can’t be that God does not love us.”
LikeLike
Lyman Beecher adopted Taylor’s phrase “power to the contrary.”
“Choice without the possibility of other choice, is the immemorial doctrine of fatalism…the early Fathers’ doctrine of free will teaches the power always of contrary choice….The Confession of Faith teaches plainly and unanswerably the free agency and natural ability of man, as capable of choice, with the power of contrary election.”
http://www.gospeltruth.net/genetichistory/genhistchap15.htm
LikeLike
“Even so, the magisterium has some explaining to do if you can swallow the idea that humans come into the world with the guilt of Adam’s sinful estate and then object to Protestants drawing a line between the imputation of Adam’s sin and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. If you want to be a Pelagian about sin, fine. But if you don’t want to be Pelagian about depravity, then don’t be semi-Pelagian about justification.”
Seems logical on its face, but it’s the same as “if you like coffee, you must like tea,” for both are caffeinated breakfast drinks. If you believe in string theory, you must believe in Santa Claus, because neither are proven realities.
Undistributed middle.
LikeLike
Sorry, the middle is distributed, but invalidly. Meant to delete that.
LikeLike
Tipton notices 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….” exactly so. 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.
But then Tipton continues to insist that effectual calling must precede God’s imputation of the righteousness—: “and the transaction of imputation is situated within the broader reality of union by Christ by Spirit-wrought faith.” Notice the word “reality”. Would God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness 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 death? Tipton is begging the question all over again, by stipulating up front that there can be no “imputation-union” but only a ‘faith-union”.
Notice the language—“situated within the broader reality of union”. This is the old cake and eat it On the one hand, if you keep the notion “broad” (and undefined) enough, then you can say the order of application does not matter (Barth, Anthony Hoekema, Sinclair Ferguson). But then on the other hand, it turns our that the order is important, because “union” has to come after faith and before imputation in order to avoid ‘legal fiction”. It also turns out that “union” needs to be ‘concrete” and that turns out to mean that “union” is by the Holy Spirit, and according to Tipton, dogmatically NOT “union by imputation”.
And then we come to the inevitable conclusion, with Gaffin’s language about Christ being justified by His resurrection and us being justified also by Christ’s resurrection. Ask yourself two questions about Tipton’s conclusion. First, is this the way the Confession says it? We have moved well past the reference to “the Spirit applies Christ”. Second, is saying it this way the best way to say it, or the only way to say it? Is it so important to say it this 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”?
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.”
and mcmark asks— do we need to look at Christ’s righteousness as the “judicial ground” . Do we need to look to God’s imputation of that righteousness as the legal basis for effectual 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 that righteousness. But here he ignores the distinction.
Tipton, 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.”
I disagree. Christ’s righteousness is NOT imputed by faith. My faith does not impute the righteousness. Nor does God wait for my faith before God can impute Christ’s righteousness. But to the main question. What is imputed? The answer of Gaffin and Tipton is that it’s not MERELY the finished work of Christ which is imputed. For them, it would be “legal fiction” if only the merits of Christ’s past obedience were impputed. According to them, the present justified status of Christ is imputed.
But they have kept “within the bounds of the confession”. They have not denied the imputation of Christ’s finished work. Unlike those( Michael Bird or N T Wright) who do deny imputation, they are catholic enough not to deny it, but also at the same time catholic enough to include other “concrete realities” like the work of the Spirit 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 once again Is this the way Confession says it? If so, perhaps there’s nothing new or important to learn from the Gaffin/Tipton . But IS it really the way the Confession says it?
Lane Tipton, Biblical Theology and the Westminster standards,, Westminster Theological Journal, 2013)
LikeLike