From this point forward, only the person who has read Ian Hewitson’s study deserves to speak and be heard … The Ninth Commandment requires nothing less.

But Frame’s foreword is more arresting that Kloosterman’s blurb if only because of the contrast between sympathy for a man who botched the gospel and hostility to men who don’t agree about Christ and culture. On the one hand, Frame agrees with Hewiston’s assessment of Shepherd:

[His] credentials — his moral integrity, personal courage and humility, impeccable scholarship, and commitment to the authority of Scripture — have given to the church and to the academy the pattern for Christian piety and scholarship. His commitment to, and passion for, “exploring the riches of divine revelation” coupled with his recognition that systematic theology is never a finished science, will provide a sure defense against “heterodoxy” for succeeding generations.

On the other hand, on closer inspection Sheperd’s scholarship may not be the bulwark against heterodoxy that Hewiston alleges. For when Frame comes to the specifics of Shepherd’s teaching he does an intellectual impression of Michael Jackson’s moonwalk (that’s the one where he walks backwards, right?):

I think Shepherd was right about James 2:14-26, but he should have presented it not as a new idea but as Reformed tradition: “It’s faith alone that saves, but the faith that saves is never alone.” I can’t imagine that such a way of putting it would have aroused the controversy that Shepherd’s view raised. But to some extent, he evidently wanted to create controversy, since he believed that typical evangelical, Lutheran, Baptist, and even Presbyterian preaching, for example, wrongly pitted grace and faith against gospel obedience. . . .

Further, I am not convinced of Shepherd’s view of election, or of his more recent denial of the imputation of Christ’s active righteousness. Still, even on these matters, Shepherd made serious arguments based on the Scriptures and Reformed confessional tradition, better on the whole, I believe, than those of his critics.

Frame’s mention of Shepherd’s faults may sound pretty negative but Frame bails out his former colleague by concluding that Shepherd bettered his critics. Frame fails to mention that Shepherd’s argument and scholarship did not persuade Frame. But then, no one ever pleases John Frame.

Logic aside, Frame’s foreword is striking. He is willing to add his name in support of a biased account of the Shepherd controversy. He is also willing to vouch in glowing terms for Shepherd’s scholarship even though justification has come under serious attack for the last thirty years. (He also doesn’t mind that Shepherd, one of Machen’s would-be warrior children was combative.) But when it comes to two-kingdom theology, Frame is more than willing to take off the gloves over a topic that is hardly the main hinge on which religion turns.

The reasons remain obscure.

Bill Evans stirred up the hornet’s nest with some contested hypotheses about the different emphases in Reformed circles as demonstrated in an exchange between Kevin DeYoung and the grandson of Billy Graham whose name I cannot pronounce or spell without buying a couple more vowels. Evans appealed to union to once again cut the Gordian knot between the forensic and moral renovation, but that did not satisfy Sean Lucas or Rick Philips. (Jared Oliphint has a good list of the various iterations of this discussion.)

Since so many have weighed in on Evans’ provocations, I will only make one brief comment about his initial post. He wrote this, which I believe to be typical of the kind of confusion that comes when asserting the simultaneity and denying the priority of justification and sanctification:

. . . it is unconvincing to suggest that Paul does not use the expectations and sanctions of the law as a motive for sanctification. More than once the Apostle provides extensive vice lists of behavior forbidden by the law of God, adding that those who behave thus “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Galatians 5:19-21; Ephesians 5:3-5). That sounds like motivation to me!

Well, a quick check of Calvin’s commentary on that passage in Galatians (recently preached by my pastor) shows that the Geneva pastor did not interpret Paul to be motivating believers to obey God’s law “or else.” On Calvin Galatians 5:21, Calvin writes:

Paul does not threaten that all who have sinned, but that all who remain impenitent, shall be excluded from the kingdom of God. The saints themselves often fall into grievous sins, but they return to the path of righteousness, “that which they do they allow not,” (Rom. vii. 15) and therefore they are not included in this catalogue.

In fact, gratitude, not fear of punishment, is the chief motivation for the Christian life throughout the most influential Reformed creeds.

I will also express some bafflement at Rick Phillips denial of any legitimacy to the idea that justification “causes” sanctification when he can assert that union “causes” justification and sanctification. If causal language is a problem for justification priority folks, why can causal language (which justification prioritoryists seldom use crudely) be applied to union?

Jared Oliphint tries to bring the whole question of the relation between justification and sanctification or between the indicative and the imperative back to the historia salutis.

Eschatology. Eschatology. Eschatology. It may initially sound foreign, but eschatology is the background of and essential to the gospel. What sets the stage for how we are justified, how we are sanctified, and what’s called the “order of salvation” is what was accomplished in history by Christ to make possible those benefits you receive by being in Christ; the history of salvation is the context for the gospel and your own personal salvation.

But the appeal to the historia soon swerves back to micromanaging the ordo salutis:

Because of the already/not yet aspect to all of reality now, that reality must inform discussions regarding the gospel, salvation, what Christ has done, what he will do, etc. There is a sense (already) in which we are no more justified or sanctified now than we ever will be, even in the new heavens and the new earth. But there is another (not yet) sense where there is still work to be done in us and with God’s unredeemed, temporary creation. While this already/not yet tension is still a reality here while our Lord tarries, the indicative of who we are as believers united with Christ and receiving every spiritual blessing (Eph 1:3) as a result is never in tension with what God calls us to do here as his sons and daughters in Christ.

As an aside, do unionists ever talk about union being already/not yet? If eschatology goes all the way down and colors all the benefits of redemption, then the answer would appear to be “yes.” But the permanence and necessity of union never seems to allow for a concession that union also partakes of the two-age construction.

Yet, when Oliphint tries to clarify the relationship between justification and sanctification from the perspective of union and the historia salutis, he winds up with an explanation that adds very little to or resolves the recent discussions.

When sanctification is defined as “getting used to your justification” or “forgetting about yourself” and the law and the gospel/grace are in a tug of war of emphasis, do you not see that the entire crucial context and substructure of what Christ accomplished and how he applies it in your life is missing? Sanctification is a dying to sin and rising with Christ and has so much more to do with what Christ did for you than in your disposition of just letting the reality of the benefit of judicially being declared righteous sink in; not to mention the need to distinguish for clarity’s sake the difference between being definitively sanctified (1 Cor 1:2; 6:11; Heb 10:10,14) through our union with Christ and progressively sanctified (Rom 12:2) over time in the life of believers.

That sounds awfully antinomian. Sanctification has to do with what Christ did. So my imaginary Roman Catholic interlocutor is now wondering why the Reformed doctrine of sanctification or union does not lead to complacency? After all, Christ did it all.

To avoid that charge, Oliphint resorts to a legal “must”:

As redeemed believers we must do good works “for Jesus” as God works in us progressively to sanctify and we must do so as good and faithful servants of the Savior who requires that of us, but not do them from a false motivation to earn our salvation already achieved for us by Christ. We obey as God’s new creatures, groaning with creation for our Savior to come and complete his work in us.

This attempted resolution is not necessarily wrong. Neither is it particularly different, despite all the gloss of Vos, from what Reformed theologians have tried to say about God at work in the believer as the believer works. Another way of saying this is the third use of the law. We needed the historia salutis for that?

From my blinkered theological mind, the big question seems to be how the law functions in the life of the believer and in what way it is necessary. Here the Shorter Catechism appears to be remarkably helpful. It distinguishes two sets of requirements.

The first is what are the duties God requires of man (39)? This is the lead question for the explanation of the Decalogue. And second, after the law is parsed, the catechism asks another “require” question: What does God require of us that we may escape the wrath and curse of God due to us for sin (85)? (Notice the difference between the law required of all men and the requirements associated with the “us” of the redeemed.) From here the catechism goes on to discuss the means of grace.

A recognition of these distinct requirements and their stated audiences plausibly leads to the conclusion that the law is not a means of grace. Clearly, the law is not in view when the catechism explicitly addresses the means of grace – that is, word, sacrament, and prayer. This doesn’t mean that the law is bad, not to be followed, or not a standard of conduct. But following the law as a requirement does not contribute to justification – or to sanctification, for that matter. Attending to the means of grace, however, does contribute to salvation as a way of reassuring believers that God has promised to save them from their sins.

In other words, following the law is only the fruit of salvation, not the means of salvation (which includes justification and sanctification).

One last thought: since starting this post I see that Evans cannot let Oliphint or others have the last word, and so he writes this:

I firmly believe that balance in the Christian life is possible and that our people see the glory of God not only in the grace of justification but also in the demands of God’s law and in the way that the whole of Scripture marvelously fits together–what WCF 1.5 calls “the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, and the entire perfection thereof.” And to this end we must proclaim the whole counsel of God. This means that we proclaim the imperatives of transformation as well as the gratuity of justification. Furthermore, we must do this without separating them, for both are found in Christ. Law without grace and mercy is just as unbalanced as grace and mercy without law.

As mechanical and confusing as “the imperatives of transformation” and the “gratuity of justification” as a formulation is, I don’t understand how Evans is not attaching an “or else” to “do this.” And I don’t for the life of me understand how this is a comfort, or how it does not undermine the assurance of the gospel. After all, everyone has a sense of justice and the idea that no matter what I do I belong to God because of Christ’s work on my behalf does not seem to be fair. Surely, I can prove my worth if I obey God’s law. But this is precisely what is so marvelous about the gospel, and why the law should send shivers down the spine of all people. No one can keep the law, not even the saints. That’s why good works are filthy rags. The only bleach available to make us presentable at the day of judgment is not the white hot flame of the law but the blood of Christ. Like the gospel, using a red fluid that will only stain to make ourselves clean makes no sense. But it’s the only hope for those who know that the law will always show the filth of human depravity and the dirt of good works.

Recently, Littlejohn reviewed VanDrunen’s Living in God’s Two Kingdoms and summarized the two-kingdom perspective as follows (with a little instruction in Latin from Kloosterman):

1) Christ has fulfilled Adam’s original task.
2) Therefore [Latin, ergo], Christians are not called to fulfil that task.
3) Christians do not need to earn eternal life by cultural labours; they already possess the eternal life that Christ has won for them.
4) Our work does not participate in the coming of the new creation–it has already been attained once and for all by Christ.
5) Our cultural activity is important but temporary, since it will all be wiped away when Christ returns to destroy this present world.

Sounds pretty good to me (except for number 5 which is a bit of a caricature), but it also makes sense theologically since you wouldn’t want to argue the opposite of these deductions, would you? Do you really want to be on the side of affirming that Christians earn eternal life through cultural labors?

Such a question does not appear to be sufficiently troubling for Littlejohn or Kloosterman who regard VanDrunen as betraying the genius of a culturally engaged Christianity. According to the former, with a high five from the latter:

. . . for VanDrunen, the suggestion that we are called to participate with Christ in restoring the world suggests synergism, suggests that Christ is not all-sufficient—if we have something to contribute to the work of redemption, then this is something subtracted from Christ, something of our own that we bring apart from him. Solus Christus and sola fide must therefore entail that there is nothing left to do in the working out of Christ’s accomplishment in his death and resurrection, that we must be nothing but passive recipients.

Here we find, then, that Puritan spirit at the heart of VanDrunen’s project–the idea that God can only be glorified at man’s expense,** that it’s a zero-sum game, and that thus to attribute something to us is to take it away from Christ, and to attribute something to Christ is to take it away from us. If Christ redeems the world, then necessarily, we must have nothing to do with the process. But this is not how the Bible speaks. He is the head, and we are the body. We are united to him. He looks on us, and what we do, and says, “That is me.” We look on him, and what he does, and say, “That is us.” He invites us to take part in his work—this is what is so glorious about redemption, that we are not simply left as passive recipients, but raised up to be Christ-bearers in the world.

Sorry, but I missed the ergo after union with Christ. We are united with Christ, ergo, we take part in redeeming the world? How exactly does that follow?

Actually, God’s glory is not a zero-sum game but redemption is. Somehow my blogging may glorify God. Somehow my cat, Isabelle, doing her best impression of a rug, is glorifying God. Somehow John F. Kennedy, as the first Roman Catholic president of the United States, glorified God. Which is to say it is possible for the glory of God to be differentiated and seen apart from the work of redemption. Since the heavens declare the glory of God and Christ did not take human form in order to redeem the heavens, such a distinction does not seem to be inherently dubious.

But to turn cultural activity into a part of redemption does take away from the all sufficiency of Christ or misunderstands the nature of his redeeming work (not to mention his providential care of his creation). And this is the problem that afflicts so many critics of 2k, even those who claim to be allies for the proclamation of the gospel. You may understand the sole sufficiency of the work of Christ for saving sinners, but if you then add redeeming culture or word and deed ministries to the mix of redemption, you are taking away from Christ’s sufficiency, both for the salvation of sinners and to determine what his kingdom is going to be and how it will be established. Maybe you could possibly think about cultural activity as a part of sanctification where God works and we work when creating a pot of clay. But as I’ve said before, the fruit of the Spirit is not Bach, Shakespeare, or Sargent; if you turn cultural activity into redeemed work you need to account for the superior cultural products of non-believers compared to believers.

To Littlejohn’s credit (as opposed to Kloosterman who fails to notice that Littlejohn has anything positive about VanDrunen), he does see merits in VanDrunen’s position:

In short, I really do salute VanDrunen’s intention to liberate Christians for cultural engagement as a grateful response to Christ’s gift, but I have a hard time seeing how he can give any meaningful content to this, given the theological foundations he has provided.

Actually, VanDrunen supplies plenty of theological justification for his view of Christ and culture since he sees important layers of discontinuity between Israel and the church (which many Kuyperians, Federal Visionaries, and theonomists fail to see and refuse to concede any ground to Meredith Kline). It does not take much imagination to see that the Israelites, even the ones who trusted in Christ during his earthly ministry, were completely unprepared for the new order that was going to emerge after the resurrection. They were still committed to Jerusalem, the Temple, the sabbath, and eating kosher. And Paul, who set the Gentiles free from those obligations, even submitted to the old arrangements for the sake of unity. But the new order of the church was completely unprecedented in the history of redemption to that point in time.

I see no reason why the next age of redemptive history will similarly exceed any expectation that we have based on our experience of this world. In fact, it strikes me that those who can’t imagine a very different order in the new heavens and new earth — what, after all, is it like to be male and female without marriage or reproduction? — are so tied to the arrangements and attractions of this world that they cannot set their minds on things above.

I have always found this view bizarre because it offers no comfort or consolation from the cross of Christ. It simply reminds me of what I deserve and tells me to sit up, take notice (of all those laws), and fly right.

The reason it now makes more sense as an appealing view to some Christians is that in their sometime wholesome reverence for God’s law and desire to see it prevail in public and private life, theonomists (at least the ones upbraiding me for licentiousness and atheism) do not seem to make much of forgiveness as a central theme in the Christian religion. After all, if God is ultimately going to forgive sinners (ahem – how would salvation be possible without this?), then the law diminishes in importance as the standard for Christian and pagan conduct. Grace and forgiveness, such as that implicit in the vicarious atonement, seemingly take away incentive to follow God’s law. But if the law is what is supreme in God’s character and in Scripture’s teaching, then looking at the atonement as a vindication of God’s righteousness makes sense and also minimizes the kind of antinomianism that might follow if people took mercy seriously.

To illustrate these different conceptions of law and their consequences for the atonement, I offer up a contrast between Charles Finney and John Calvin. Granted, this may not be the fairest of fights, but Finney’s language (which is widely available online) is instructive for those Calvinists who are tempted to stress the law as central to Christianity and even to the gospel. (Theonomists, Federal Visionaries, Bayly Brothers, Rabbi Bret, and Indiana-based Kuyperians, sit up, take notice and fly right.)

First, Finney on law and gospel:

The intention of the Gospel is by no means to repeal the law. “Do we, then, make void the law through faith?” said the apostle; “God forbid; yea, we establish the law.” By his life and death, Christ honoured the law; and thus himself furnished the means of rebuking the rebellious lives of sinners. The spirit of the law pervades the Gospel, and they infinitely mistake the subject who suppose that the moral law is not part of the Gospel. This is the way to make Christ the minister of sin. This is to array Christ against the moral law; for how could he by abrogating the law make it honourable? This would be to weaken the law. Do not mistake me: I do not mean that men are to be saved by their own righteousness–that they are to be restored to happiness by the law, as the ground of their acceptance with God. I mean no such thing as this; but what I do mean is, that this is a condition of their forgiveness, –they must break off their rebellion, and become submissive and obedient to its authority. A man who has once violated a law can never be justified by it; this is both naturally and governmentally impossible. But there must be obedience to the law as a condition of forgiveness for past sins and offences. (Finney, “Christ Magnifying the Law,” 1850)

Yes, Finney really did say that forgiveness depends on obedience. Holy bleep, Batman!

Next Calvin on law and gospel:

The sum of the matter comes to this: The Old Testament filled the conscience with fear and trembling—The New inspires it with gladness. By the former the conscience is held in bondage, by the latter it is manumitted and made free. If it be objected, that the holy fathers among the Israelites, as they were endued with the same spirit of faith, must also have been partakers of the same liberty and joy, we answer, that neither was derived from the Law; but feeling that by the Law they were oppressed like slaves, and vexed with a disquieted conscience, they fled for refuge to the gospel; and, accordingly, the peculiar advantage of the Gospel was, that, contrary to the common rule of the Old Testament, it exempted those who were under it from those evils. Then, again, we deny that they did possess the spirit of liberty and security in such a degree as not to experience some measure of fear and bondage. For however they might enjoy the privilege which they had obtained through the grace of the Gospel, they were under the same bonds and burdens of observances as the rest of their nation. Therefore, seeing they were obliged to the anxious observance of ceremonies (which were the symbols of a tutelage bordering on slavery, and handwritings by which they acknowledged their guilt, but did not escape from it), they are justly said to have been, comparatively, under a covenant of fear and bondage, in respect of that common dispensation under which the Jewish people were then placed. (Institutes II.11.ix)

Now Finney on the atonement::

7. An atonement was needed to inspire confidence in the offers and promises of pardon, and in all the promises of God to man. Guilty selfish man finds it difficult, when thoroughly convicted of sin, to realize and believe that God is actually sincere in his promises and offers of pardon and salvation. But whenever the soul can apprehend the reality of the Atonement, it can then believe every offer and promise as the very thing to be expected from a being who could give his Son to die for enemies.

An Atonement was needed, therefore, as the great and only means of sanctifying sinners:

Rom. 8:3,4. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” The law was calculated, when once its penalty was incurred, to shut the sinner up in a dungeon, and only to develop more and more his depravity. Nothing could subdue his sin and cause him to love but the manifestation to him of disinterested benevolence. The atonement is just the thing to meet this necessity and subdue rebellion.

8. An Atonement was needed, not to render God merciful, but to reconcile pardon with a due administration of justice. This has been virtually said before, but needs to be repeated in this connection. (Lecture 31 from Lectures on Systematic Theology)

And Calvin on the atonement:

. . . Christ appeared once for all to take away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Again, that he was offered to bear the sins of many (Heb. 9:12). He had previously said, that not by the blood of goats or of heifers, but by his own blood, he had once entered into the holy of holies, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Now, when he reasons thus, “If the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself to God, purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:13, 14), it is obvious that too little effect is given to the grace of Christ, unless we concede to his sacrifice the power of expiating, appeasing, and satisfying: as he shortly after adds, “For this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of his death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance,” (Heb. 9:15). But it is especially necessary to attend to the analogy which is drawn by Paul as to his having been made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). It had been superfluous and therefore absurd, that Christ should have been burdened with a curse, had it not been in order that, by paying what others owed, he might acquire righteousness for them. There is no ambiguity in Isaiah’s testimony, “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him; and with his stripes we are healed,” (Is. 53:5). For had not Christ satisfied for our sins, he could not be said to have appeased God by taking upon himself the penalty which we had incurred. To this corresponds what follows in the same place, “for the transgression of my people was he stricken,” (Is. 53:8). We may add the interpretation of Peter, who unequivocally declares, that he “bare our sins in his own body on the tree,” (1 Pet. 2:24), that the whole burden of condemnation, of which we were relieved, was laid upon him. (Institutes, II.17.iv)

Here’s a revelation: I prefer Calvin. What is more, Calvin understands the Bible.

We, indeed, willingly acknowledge, that believers ought to make daily increase in good works, and that the good works wherewith they are adorned by God, are sometimes distinguished by the name of righteousness. But since the whole value of works is derived from no other fountain than that of gratuitous acceptance, how absurd were it to make the former overthrow the latter! Why do they not remember what they learned when boys at school, that what is subordinate is not contrary? I say that it is owing to free imputation that we are considered righteous before God; I say that from this also another benefit proceeds, viz., that our works have the name of righteousness, though they are far from having the reality of righteousness. In short, I affirm, that not by our own merit but by faith alone, are both our persons and works justified; and that the justification of works depends on the justification of the person, as the effect on the cause. Therefore, it is necessary that the righteousness of faith alone so precede in order, and be so pre-eminent in degree, that nothing can go before it or obscure it. (“Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote,” in Selected Works, vol. 3, p.128)

. . . TULIP is not the essence of the Reformed theology. Of course, the doctrines of Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints are an important starting step to the immense body of theological truths called “Reformed theology.” It follows directly from the greater concept of the Sovereignty of God. It correctly describes the fallen state of man and the work of God in saving the individual. When we look up to God to give thanks for what He has done for us personally, we think “TULIP,” even if we never knew the term or never understood it.

To summarize, TULIP is the acronym for the “mechanism” of our personal salvation. And that’s it. Nothing more than our personal salvation. But Reformed theology encompasses immeasurably more than just personal salvation. And when a church makes TULIP the summa of its theology, that church is not Reformed. Yes, it has taken the first step to becoming Reformed, but it is still far from the goal.

So if the doctrines of grace are just a start then where does the Reformed faith lead?

It was not churches full of believers who earnestly study theology only to revel in their personal salvation. In fact, with two exceptions – Scotland and Hungary – the early Reformers didn’t leave us any lasting churches at all. It was not intellectualized sermons of elaborate psychological verbiage that pick on every feeling and every emotion a believer may have. It was not courageous sermons on irrelevant topics of peripheral importance to our age and culture. And it certainly wasn’t a belief in a God who is only sovereign to save individuals, but nothing else.

Their most lasting legacy was on the cultivation of societies, whole cultures based on the practical applications of Reformed theology, from top to bottom. Geneva, Strasbourg, Holland, England, Scotland, Hungary, the Huguenot communities in France and later in North and South Carolina, the Oranje-Vrystaat and Transvaal. Societies that became light to the world, an embodiment of Christ’s liberty and justice for all. The Reformed believers of earlier centuries built a civilization that influenced the world permanently. They changed the world not by the selfishness of the focus on salvation but by the obedience of teaching the nations and building the Kingdom of God.

To counter this Whiggish and transformational view of Reformed Protestantism, one could seemingly emphasize a number of truths. But the one that seems to make the biggest dent is justification by faith alone, where personal salvation is the point of Christ’s saving work, and where the kingdom comes not through civil kingdoms or magistrates but where believers confess and worship Christ as Lord and savior.

On the other hand, a view of salvation that looks for the proximity of faith and good works, and sees personal transformation as a barometer of Christ’s work will often be hamfisted in opposing transformationalism. It’s as if the Reformed faith is chopped liver for serving up an alien righteousness when what we really need for the kingdom to exist and thrive is a personal and active righteousness.

Anyway, arguments like American Vision’s are part of the reason for countering with justification-priority.

The first consequence of justification by faith is, that we have peace with God, ver. 1. The second, that we have not only a sense of his present favour, but assurance of future glory, ver. 2. The third, that our afflictions, instead of being inconsistent with the divine favour, are made directly conducive to the confirmation of our hope; the Holy Spirit bearing witness to the fact that we are the objects of the love of God, verses 3-5. The fourth, the certainty of the final salvation of all believers. This is argued from the freeness and greatness of the divine love; its freeness being manifested in its exercise towards the unworthy; and its greatness, in the gift of the Son of God, verses 6-10. Salvation is not merely a future though certain good, it is a present and abundant joy, verse 11. (Commentary, p. 131)

Why does Paul insist upon the imputed active obedience of Christ in our justification? Why is this necessary aside from the fact that the Scriptures teach its necessity? The answer lies in the nature of our justification. We must recognize that the ground of our justification is not our sanctification, or the transformative aspect of our union with Christ. To base our justification in our sanctification is to change the judicial ground from the work of Christ to the work of the believer. The good works of the believer, even those that are the result of the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, are at the end of the day imperfect. . . .

It is only the obedience of Christ, therefore, that can be the ground of our justification, not only the obedience that he offered in his vicarious suffering throughout his entire earthly ministry, his passive obedience, but also his perfect law-keeping that he offered on our behalf to his Father, his active obedience.

In terms of union with Christ and justification, Berkhof therefore explains that “justification is always a declaration of God, not on the basis of an existing 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 special grace which we receive lies in the fact that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to us.” What we must realize, then, is that the ground of our redemption is the work of Christ; correlatively, we should also recognize that the ground of our sanctification is our justification. In other words, apart from the legal-forensic work of Christ, received by imputation through faith, there is no transformative work of the Holy Spirit. Or, using the title of John Murray’s famous book, apart from redemption accomplished, there can be no redemption applied (see WCF 11.3; Larger Catechism, Q/A 70). (John Fesko, “Toward A More Perfect Union?” Modern Reformation)

Thanks to Heidelblog

There could be no greater error, therefore, than that of representing the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith as a mere afterthought, as a mere weapon in controversy. Paul was interested in salvation from the guilt of sin no whit less than in salvation from the power of sin, in justification no whit less than in the “new creation.” Indeed, it is a great mistake to separate the two sides of his message. There lies the root error of the customary modern formula for explaining the origin of the Pauline theology. According to that formula, the forensic element in Paul’s doctrine of salvation, which centers in justification, was derived from Judaism, and the vital or essential element which centers in the new creation was derived from paganism. In reality, the two elements are inextricably intertwined. The sense of guilt was always central in the longing for salvation which Paul desired to induce in his hearers, and imparted to that longing an ethical quality which was totally lacking in the mystery religions. And salvation in the Pauline churches consisted not merely in the assurance of a blessed immortality, not merely in the assurance of a present freedom from the bondage of fate, not merely even in the possession of a new power of holy living, but also, and everywhere, in the consciousness that the guilt of sin had been removed by the cross of Christ. (Origin of Paul’s Religion, p. 279)

It is above all things important, that men, if they have broken the law of God, and become liable to the punishment which the law denounces against transgression, – and that this is, indeed, the state of men by nature is of course now assumed, – should know whether there be any way in which they may obtain the pardon and deliverance they need; and if so, what that way is. And it is the doctrine of justification as taught in Scripture which alone affords a satisfactory answer to the question. The subject thus bears most directly and immediately upon men’s relation to God and their everlasting destiny, and is fraught with unspeakable practical importance to every human being. It is assumed now that the condition of men by nature is such in point of fact, – that some change or changes must be effected regarding them in order to their escaping fearful evil and enjoying permanent happiness; and it is in this way that the doctrine of justification is connected with that of original sin, as the nature and constituent elements of the disease must determine the nature and qualities of the remedy that may be fitted to cure or remove it. (William Cunningham, Historical Theology, vol. 2, pp. 1-2)