In an ongoing attempt to explain why some Reformed Protestants – okay, this one – are concerned about any formulation of doctrine that would de-center justification by faith, the following quotation from Benjamin Warfield is especially apt. It expresses the problem of human sin and the need for perfect righteousness with the sort of clarity that not only made Warfield legendary but also more importantly clarifies the significance of the righteousness that believers receive through faith alone.
Sometimes we are told that Justification by Faith is “out of date.” That would be a pity, if it were true. What it would mean would be that the way of salvation was closed and “no thoroughfare” nailed up over the barriers. There is no justification for sinful men except by faith. The works of a sinful man will, of course, be as sinful as he is, and nothing but condemnation can be built upon them. Where can he get works upon which he can found his hope of justification, except from Another? His hope of Justification, remember – that is, of being pronounced righteous by God. Can God pronounce him righteous except on the ground of works that are righteous? Where can a sinful man get works that are righteous? Surely, not from himself; for, he is a sinner, and all his works as sinful as he is. He must go out of himself, then, to find works which he can offer to God as righteous. And where will he find such works except in Christ? Or how will he make them his own except by faith in Christ?
Justification by Faith, we see, is not to be set in contradiction to justification by Works. It is set in contradiction only to justification by our Own Works. It is justification by Christ’s Works. The whole question, accordingly, is whether we can hope to be received into God’s favor on the ground of what we do ourselves, or only on the ground of what Christ does for us. . . . Justification by Faith means, that is to say, that we look to Christ and him alone for salvation, and come to God pleading Christ’s death and righteousness as the ground of our hope to be received into his favor. If Justification by Faith is out of date, that means, then, that salvation by Christ is out of date. . . .
Justification by Faith does not mean, then, salvation by believing instead of by doing right. It means pleading the merits of Christ before the throne of grace instead of our own merits. . . . Justification by Faith is nothing other than obtaining everlasting life by believing in Christ. . . .
(Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, vol. 1, 283-84)
Old Life 
Amen. But I don’t see how this quote contradicts anything Gaffin, Tipton, et al teach. I don’t hold to any priority of justification over sanctification, but I still love and affirm Warfield’s words here. His emphasis that we look to Christ and him alone for salvation is critical. I’m convinced all believers need to look to Christ not only for his justification, but all the benefits that flow from him.
I prefer to make the person and work of Christ the center of soteriology, not a single benefit. For out of him flow all the benefits of salvation. So long as we affirm faith as enacting union with Christ, the necessity of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, and maintain his righteousness as the sole ground of our justification this seems to be a better model.
No surprises here, but our disagreement stems from our different understanding of [so-called] definitive sanctification. I will affirm with you all day long that justification takes priority over progressive sanctification, but I can’t say it takes priority over Christ’s death to sin and the breach of sin’s power in the life of the believer – principally because they both are effects of Christ’s death and resurrection.
I realize I’m sounding like a broken record. Thoughts?
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Camden, I’m not trying to catch you but you say you agree with Warfield and yet you would not make a “single benefit” the center of soteriology. But Warfield does make a single benefit the center of soteriology. And it seems that he does so because of how important justification is to the work of Christ.
The difference may be over definitive sanctification. But it may also be over justification and all that is involved in that benefit. If we cannot be pronounced righteous by God on the basis of any righteousness other than Christ’s, and if we receive Christ’s righteousness by faith in justification, then how is that not the center of our salvation?
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I don’t see that Warfield making justification by faith the center of soteriology in this particular quote though I don’t doubt he does that elsewhere. I’m reading that he stresses its importance which I find to be quite different from making it the center [in a structural sort of way] of soteriology.
I will admit that the last phrase (“Justification by Faith is nothing other than obtaining everlasting life by believing in Christ”) could be read as arguing against my point. But I could just as quickly add that Warfield’s second paragraph seems more in line with the point of my first comment: that the person and work of Christ is central, not a single benefit.
I don’t mind making justification the center of soteriology in a polemic sense (which I suspect might be your primary concern), but I won’t say that it’s central in a structural [or causal] sense over against the other salvific benefits.
To answer your question, justification is not the center of soteriology in a structural or causal sense, because [in my understanding] there is no primacy of the forensic over the rennovative and because all the benefits flow directly out of the singular person and work of Christ – not from each other.
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Justification by Faith, we see, is not to be set in contradiction to justification by Works. It is set in contradiction only to justification by our Own Works. It is justification by Christ’s Works…Justification by Faith does not mean, then, salvation by believing instead of by doing right. It means pleading the merits of Christ before the throne of grace instead of our own merits. . . . Justification by Faith is nothing other than obtaining everlasting life by believing in Christ. . . .
This seems as insightful(and provocative)as saying that the opposite of faith is not doubt (since doubt necessarily attends faith) but sight. And what seems doubtful is that these are the ways most see these things these days.
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Just my 2 pence worth here. I seems to me without union with Christ there is no justification.
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Camden, don’t you think it significant that Warfield interchangeably uses “Justification by Faith” and “Salvation by Christ”? BBW does that in the second graph. Yet, you seem to be less willing to make that identification — Justification by Faith the same as Salvation by Christ. You seem to want to say that salvation is more than justification.
Now, the advocates of justification’s centrality are not denying union or that other benefits accompany or flow from effectual calling (which the Rodney Dangerfield of ordo discussions these days). But if the standard for acceptance by God is perfect righteousness, and we obtain that in the benefit called justification, and if the renovative aspects of salvation are always imperfect in this life, then I don’t see how that prevents justification from occupying center stage — or as historians call it, the material principle of the Reformation.
Jim, here’s another penny, without God there is no justification. Saying no justification without union may fit on a bumper sticker, but it hardly resolves the conundrum of how I as a sinner acquire the perfect righteousness that God requires and that I cannot produce even on my most sanctified days because my good works are still filthy rags.
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Here’s my 2 pence: without legal union/justification there is no mystical union. There is a distinction and it seems, in my opinion, Gaffin et al have conflated the legal and the mystical flavours to create a less than Reformed taste.
Having been reared on modern reformed STs it was only recently I discovered definitive sanctification’s questionable confessional status.
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The original post was about the centrality of justification. To say that justification is central is like saying that union is not, and neither is God.
The important insight found in the doctrine of union with Christ is that salvation has Christ in the Center.
It may be argued, I believe, that with the Lutheran emphasis on justification in the center of one’s theology the next logical step is liberalism. To place justification in the center of theology in general and soteriology in particular is to place what happens to man in the center. The doctrine of Union with Christ turns that on its head and places Christ in all his objective and redemptive historical work at the center. The gospel is first and foremost what God does for us in Christ, not first and foremost what God did to us. The latter flows from the former. If you reverse that order, you might as well strap a WWJD bracelet around your wrist.
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Jim: wow! Lutheranism leads to liberalism. Machen actually thought that Lutheran commitments to justification and catechesis were significant reasons for the Lutheran churches in the United States avoiding the general Anglo-American Protestant decline.
Be that as it may, justification according to our catechism is “an act of God’s free grace whereby he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us and received by faith alone.” It looks to me that God is the actor in justification, Christ is at the center, and man is fairly passive.
I am not sure that justification could be construed as lessening the work of Christ. The Reformation posited justification (not union) precisely because it was the doctrine that brought to light the sufficiency of Christ, as opposed to Rome’s semi-pelagian teaching and worship practice.
And why would union not put the Holy Spirit at the center of salvation? After all, effectual calling is the work of the Spirit.
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The way I see it union is about the once and for work if Christ. It begins with the historia salutis, and then leads to the ordo salutis. It gives priority to the objective. The WLC makes this clear. Q/A 66 is the hinge, if I can put it that way, upon which the objective work and benefits of Christ (Q/A 36-65) turns to the subjective appropriation of that work and those benefits to the believer in grace and glory (Q/A 67-90). That structure, at least, seems pretty obvious in the catechism itself.
Blessings,
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Jim, I would agree that effectual calling looks pretty important in WLC 66 and 67, WSC 29-31, and WCF 10.
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One last point. I should repent of the comment about Lutheranism leading to liberalism. That’s irresponsible historical guilt by association (like you see in those who blame Edwards for the New Divinity or Murray for Shepherd).
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I seems to me without union with Christ there is no justification.
It would seem there is good reason the Bible employs familial analogies, specifically that of marriage. May anyone be said to legitimately enjoy the benefits of marriage, namely union, without first being declared or reckoned married? The creational version of redemptive reversal is what some might call a re-definition of marriage. Ouch.
It seems to me that, just as without the marriage license there is no marriage bed, without the declarative reality of justification there is no union with Christ. Like mama and Crosby, Stills and Nash said, first things first.
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Zrim,
Can Christ’s active and passive obedience be imputed to a sinner if that sinner is not united to the actively and passively obedient Christ?
Blessings,
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Jim,
Since they always break down at some point, it’s not just to keep the analogy going, but I wonder if one might as well ask: Can a wife be married to her husband if she isn’t first united to him? Maybe it’s that I have two daughters, but, um, no, first she must be married before she can be united. If she has a problem with that, there’s not much I can do because I didn’t write the rules, I only do what I can to follow them.
Above you suggested that to make justification central and it’s just a few hops to Lutheranism then liberalism. I know you recanted, but I’m not so sure that to confuse the necessary priority of these things isn’t to concede something to Rome, where it is said that one is only as justified as he is sanctified, which seems like saying that today I am “more married” to my wife than I was yesterday because yesterday was a less-than-bright spot in our relationship. But to say I am “more or less married” on any given day seems not too unlike saying water is wet in spots, dry in others.
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Jim, only a truly humble man would have recanted. God bless you.
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You know DGH that it has been argued that one could stand in the Warfieldian trajectory and claim that they are still being faithful to BBW’s concerns and yet turn inerrancy on its head. So, perhaps one could make the claim that a Federal Visionist, with keen insight’s from NT Wright,could make a similar claim about justification-like Mr. Horn has done.
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According to Herman Bavinck (as I’m paraphrasing him), “active justification” is prior to and causative of union, while “passive justification” is an effect of union. What do you all have to say about that?
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Good of you to admit this, Jim, but let’s not get carried away. I think we can blame the New Divinity on Edwards.
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But how can a sinner, dead in trespasses and guilt, be united to the blameless, holy, and living Christ? Isn’t that another way of asking the Reformation’s question: how can sinners be right with a God who demands perfect obedience? The more I ask these questions, the more central justification is looking.
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Gary, not to worry. I have a much easier time distinguishing Horne from Warfield than I do Johnson from Warfield.
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BC,
Me thinks you need to provide some more context! Like, um, a page number or something.
Blessings!
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Actually, man and wife are pronounced husband and wife only after they have entered into a covenant, thus uniting themselves one to other. The marriage analogy is indeed the most helpful in this discussion. The preacher pronounces them husband and wife only after the union exists. I admit, I believe marriage officially begins with the vows, not with the pronouncement or sex consummation of the marriage–differing views here might weaken the argument, but no union no pronouncement.
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Nice try, Jason, but let’s complicate your scenario. Let’s say the bride is a renouwned hooker and this is her third marriage. The groom is a virgin and was valedictorian of his high school and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard. Plus, his dad is a law-and-order district attorney who just got elected by pledging to shut down all brothels in the town where his son is getting married. How exactly does this pre-nup covenant take place?
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Nevermind, I think I was reading a bit too much into his comments on active and passive justification. My bad.
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Jason,
Maybe you’re not married or have just forgotten the importance of pronouncement or reckoning. But if I had told my future wife “we don’t need no stinkin’ piece of paper, baby,” I’d be quite single today and rightly so.
But seriously, marriage doesn’t begin with the vows, it demands them before any pronouncement may be legitimately made. And consummation is the benefit of having first met the prerequisite and had the pronouncement bestowed. If pronouncement is as negligible as you suggest, I should be able to burn my marriage license and forget my anniversary. Maybe you just have bigger eggs than me, but I fear both the state and my wife enough to think that would be pretty asinine (and it’s not just because I have a nice weekend planned in a few days to celebrate our anniversary).
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DGH
Just wondering-why the photo of Dick Allen smoking ?
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Gary, Allen was my childhood hero until I discovered he smoked. Now as an adult he is my hero because he smoked.
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Can you imagine the kind of numbers-and salary- Allen would put up in today’s game?
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Yes, and he did not with steroids but nicotine. Woot!
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DGH,
If you were 1337, you would have spelled it with zeros. w00t!
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Zrim,
If marriage does not begin with the vows, why does it demand them before any legitimate pronouncement can be made. Am I missing something? Sounds like it begins with the vows based on your logic. Also, saying marriage begins with the vows does not make the other parts unimportant or unnecessary. Just as union with Christ does not make justification unimportant or unnecessary.
I am married, by the way, and my wife agrees with me.
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Jason,
Well, if my father-in-law had never pronounced his daughter and me or signed the license something tells me the vows would’ve lost their power and cast doubt on our union.
But, who knows, maybe this is where the wheels of analogy begin to fall off? The simple point, it seems to me, is that there is a necessary priority of justification to union (sanctification?), just as there is of Word to sacrament. As you suggested, I thought the marriage analogy was pretty good and would make that sort of obvious. I’d appeal to another conservative notion of living up to one’s spoken word or promise given, but maybe that would be tortured into confusion as well. I tried.
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