Where's Waldo Wednesday: The Power to Confuse

Published on by D. G. Hart

Nick Batzig has a useful post on union with Christ that I believe illustrates what some people find confusing about the doctrine — at least I do. I interact with this post not to single out or pick on Nick, who is a friend and whose ministry I respect, but because it is an example of the assertions that follow from union with Christ — assertions that do not necessarily follow as a form of argument but may work more as a kind of inspiration. If readers can help me understand better, or fill in the holes of a necessarily short essay, I’d be grateful. Unionists may plausibly consider me a hostile reader. But since I am also some kind of Vossian and generally agree with the unionists on a variety of other matters, such as worship and polity, they may actually consider the questions raised here as a useful prod to the kind of clarity and explanation that would greatly advance their cause and aid the churches they admirably wish to serve.

I’ll paste below the full text of Nick’s post — to let him have his due — and supply a running commentary at the bottom.

One of the most beneficial things I learned from my professors during my seminary days was that ministers must continually preach the message of the cross to the people of God for their growth in grace. One professor in particular constantly exhorted us to preach Christ “for pardon and power.” The longer I have been a Christian, the more I see the wisdom of this counsel. The message of the cross meets our deepest need for pardon, but it also meets our need for power as we seek to overcome indwelling sin.

Few things trouble the soul of the child of God so much as the presence of indwelling sin, and the sober realization of the inability of the flesh to overcome it. True believers often come to an end of themselves and cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death” (Rom. 7:24)? Christians grieve over sin and spiritual weakness. They long for victory over it. The Scriptures command us to be diligent in examining ourselves (1 Cor. 11:28; 2 Cor. 13:5), taking heed to ourselves (1 Cor. 10:12), and asking the Lord to “search us…and see if there be any grievous way in us” (Psalm 139:23-24); but they do not stop there. God’s word reveals that the work of Christ is the source of pardon for sin—as well as the source of power to overcome it. Believers possess this power by virtue of their union with Christ in His death and resurrection. In order to grow in Christ-likeness, the believer must remember that sin’s dominion was broken when Christ died in their place and rose again. This is the apostle’s chief concern in Romans 6:1-14—a passage to which we must regularly return.

All of this seems so clear that I marvel at how quickly we forget it, and how seldom it is mentioned in pulpits and Christian literature (a grand exception being Walter Marshall’s Gospel Mystery of Sanctification!). The deficiency is apparent in many seeker-sensitive churches where pragmatism abounds; but sadly, it is also prevalent in many of our more traditional Protestant churches. I often fear that those who are most skillful at diagnosing the complexity and atrocity of sin in themselves—and in pointing it out in others—are the least skillful in pointing themselves and others to the Savior. It is far easier to fixate on the problem than to focus on the solution. It is actually quite easy to focus on sin and quite difficult to keep our eyes steadfastly fixed on Jesus (Heb. 12:1-2). Consequently, it often seems expedient to offer pragmatic—dare I say it, even biblical—advice that does not actually give the power to overcome sin (Col. 2:20-23). In order to progress in Christian living, we must remember that sin’s dominion was broken when Christ died for us at the cross.

Paul began to address the issue of sanctification in Romans (Rom. 6:1-14), by reminding believers of the freedom they have from sin’s dominion by virtue of their union with Christ: “We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6:6). Sin’s power was broken in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Christ came not only to cancel sin’s debt; He came to break its power. Therefore, the apostle exhorted: “You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom.6:11). When we forget that sin’s power over us was broken in the death of Christ, we will inevitably fail to walk in the newness of life that we have in union with Him. If we neglect this crucial aspect of Christ’s work we will inevitably end up living in bondage, discouragement, fear, doubt, and anxiety—or else we will become self-righteous, judgmental and proud.

Union with Christ truly is one of the most precious doctrines for Christian living. It is mentioned nearly 150 times in the New Testament by use of the phrase “in Christ,” “in Him,” “in Jesus,” or “in Jesus Christ.” The apostles relentlessly remind believers of their position in Christ. By faith, we are united to Him, in whom we receive all the spiritual blessings of God (1 Cor. 1:31).

We do not come to Christ by faith for justification and then depart from Him for sanctification. In Christ our sins are pardoned, and in Him the reign of sin is overthrown. The same Christ who justified us, also sanctifies us; therefore, the same faith that justifies us also sanctifies us (cf. John 15:1-5). John Owen captured this truth magnificently when he wrote: “While by faith we contemplate the glory of Christ as revealed in the Gospel, all grace will thrive and flourish in us towards a perfect conformity unto Him.” By union with Christ, believers have power to put indwelling sin to death (Col. 2:20-3:17). With the apostle we answer the question, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?,” with the joyful exclamation, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

So, we begin with the message of the cross and the power of the cross in addressing the sinner’s need for pardon and power to overcome sin. So far, no union. It’s the cross. Lots of hymns support that theme.

In the second graph we have more on the problem of indwelling sin and the power of the cross to overcome this dominion. So far, still no union. It’s the cross. But at the end of the graph we have mention of the resurrection. And for most union advocates, following Richard Gaffin, it is the resurrection that brings the power to overcome sin’s dominion (did someone say “dominionism”?). For that reason, I was a little confused by Nick’s start with the cross. Now that he turns to the resurrection I’m feeling on more familiar ground.

Then in the fourth graph we arrive at union with Christ, having moved from the power of the cross first and then the power of the resurrection. But this is an odd argument at this point because we have freedom from the power of sin by virtue of union, but then we can fail somehow to possess the power, possibly by a failure of memory. Granted, believers who forget the doctrine of union fail to find comfort from it. But the problem that Nick addresses from the outset is a person who has sinned. The sinner hasn’t merely forgotten union but is actually struggling with the betweenness of belonging to Christ and doing something that looks like he belongs to the devil. Obviously, remembering union won’t solve the problem of having just sinned and trying to account for its presence in the believer’s life.

This is why I find talk about the wonders of the doctrine of union frustrating. It is apparently the cure for what ails the saint battling sin. But union is apparently a reality even when a saint sins, just as justification is. A saint united to Christ has power over indwelling sin even while he has sins in his life which testify to the power of indwelling sin. Which would suggest that the doctrine of union faces the same dilemma as justification — just as the saint is simultaneously justified and a sinner, so the one united to Christ is both united and a sinner. Either way, sin is still there and the believer is wondering, with Paul, how will I escape this body of death? I don’t see how union is so much more comforting than justification.

Then in the last two graphs we see fulsome praise for the doctrine of union, how it combines both justification and sanctification. Nick writes, “By union with Christ, believers have power to put indwelling sin to death.” But again, didn’t this post begin with the presence of sin in the Christian life, and evidence that indwelling sin has not died? Wasn’t the believer who sinned united to Christ? So how does union fix this problem?

To summarize: again, I am not picking on Nick. His piece is a perfect example of the kind of pro-union statements I regularly see and hear. And despite how often I hear the doctrine, I am still left confused by its explanation and power of inspiration. For one thing, its articulation seems often to merge thoughts about the power of Christ’s death and his resurrection, running all too quickly between the two. I guess this is an objection about the lack of precision. The other source of confusion is the alleged solution that union seems to provide to believers who struggle with sin and doubt. Union is supposed to point to the power over indwelling sin that believers possess by virtue of union at precisely the time in their life when they are most aware of indwelling sin’s ongoing power. Since I sin, I have tested the capacity of union to ease my burdened soul. But I find much more comfort in the face of guilt to know that I no longer face condemnation.

Postscript: And while I’m at it — I know a certain lay person (not all about me) who wonders how union with Christ is different from union with God. Since Christ is God, an ordinary believer may think that all of the talk about union with Christ leads to a view of being united with God that is at odds with what Christians also believe about the categorical distinction between the creator and the creature. If anyone who wants to help me out with this lay person’s confusion, I’d be grateful.

510 thoughts on “Where's Waldo Wednesday: The Power to Confuse”

  1. Dr. Hart,

    First, full disclosure that I am friends with Nick and with the Reformed Forum guys who advocate an emphasis on Union with Christ. I think it’s a false dilemma to think we must choose between emphasizing Union with Christ or Forensic Justification. I believe a balanced view of Union actually amplifies my understanding of Justification. Union with Christ is logically the vehicle by which all the benefits of Christ, including Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification, are given to me as a Christian. When I sin, as I so often do, remembering the reality of my Union with Christ as I repent brings me comfort and strength for the fight because it assures me that because I am “in Christ” I am both fully Justified AND being progressively sanctified.

    I know there is a concern that some who are pro-union practically undermine the doctrine of forensic Justification. Historically, an unbalanced emphasis on Justification has undermined Sanctification, but that does not mean we should throw out the doctrine of Justification. Instead of seeing Union and Justification as two competing categories, we should labor to see how they fit together to in the Ordo Salutis.

    Thanks again for your ministry and I appreciate your thoughtful essays and books, even if I don’t always agree with what they say.

    Ken

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  2. Here’s what always leaves me confused: Taking Nick’s above expression of union as the remedy for battles with indwelling sin, why wouldn’t this cause me to conclude that I really am not united to Christ, since, after all, my indwelling sin doesn’t seem to be put to death? Far from inspiring motivation for holy living, telling me that sin’s power is broken in my when sin’s power doesn’t seem broken in my life deflates me. It seems frustrating.

    Or could it be that Romans 6 really does come after Romans 4-5 for a reason? And could it be that what assures me that sin’s power really is broken in my life, even when it seems it’s not, is because we know this much is promised as the inevitable consequence of a justification which God bestows upon the ungodly?

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  3. Darryl, thank you for taking the time to post this, as I hope it will help to bring light to this important subject. Since I don’t have time to adequately answer all of the questions you raise in this post (with 3 boys under 4 1/2 and a 2 yr. old church plant), let me try to highlight a few things. I only had 850 words for the Tabletalk article for which this material was first written. I wish that I had fifty thousand words to clarify all the nuances that need to be made (but that would be to write the book I wish I had time to write)! You know that I do not put myself on the side of Gaffin, on the one hand, or Horton/Clark et al on the other. I respect these men greatly, and have learned a great deal from all of them. I do, however, take issue with certain emphases that all of then make. We are all subject to criticism–starting we me!

    That being said, the point I was trying to highlight is the exegetical point that Paul makes in Romans 6 and Colossians 3, namely, it is in the redemptive-historical union that we have with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection that breaks the power of sin’s dominion in us. Now, when we speak of union, I would follow Gaffin’s three-fold distinction (i.e. (1) decreetal, Eph. 1:4; (2) redemptive-historical, Rom. 6:1-4 and Col. 2:20-3:4; and (3) existential, Rom. 16:7. All three of these phases of union with Christ form the architectonic principle of the Christian’s life. Because it is Christ, as our representative, who secures all the blessings of God for us, union with Christ makes all of them possible.

    Sanctification cannot flow from justification, though I readily admit that it justification logically proceeds progressive sanctification in the ordo salutis, and therefore, stands in a place of logical priority (just as regeneration, according to our Reformed and biblical heritage states, stands in a place of logical priority to justification). Being a proponent of the doctrine of definitive sanctification, I cannot say that justification has a priority to it. It is, like justification and adoption, as once-for-all act. Progressive sanctification, as our confession says, is an ongoing “work of God.” I believe that justification, definitive sanctification and adoption all occur simultaneously in the ordo.

    In the historia salutis, Christ is the elect One, the adopted One, the justified One, the sanctified One and the Glorified One (I’d be glad to give you Scripture proofs if needed). The historia salutis is the foundation of the ordo salutis. Christ must be the source of our sanctification–justification cannot be. Again, I do believe that justification (or at least the existential knowledge of it) is one of the principle means of promoting our sanctification. As Peter says in his epistle, “whoever lacks these things is short sighted even to blindness and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his old sins.”

    I will stop for now. I am sure there will be more questions, comments, etc. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Thanks Darryl.

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  6. Darryl,

    What has confused me about this discussion is what’s at stake if one gets this wrong. If I err on the side of justification, so what? If I over-emphasize union, what happens? I understand the positions discussed (I think), but I don’t see the resulting error from taking a particular stance (other than being “too Lutheran,” whatever that means). So, then, I wonder if this discussion is about a distinction without a difference. I don’t understand what union offers that justification doesn’t make a reality, or vise versa. If the answer is “nothing,” then what’s the issue?

    As an example of my confusion, Nick, in his first comment, writes “Sanctification cannot flow from justification…” but later states “…I do believe that justification…is one of the principle means of promoting our sanctification.” Those seem like almost contradictory statments to me. So I’m confused. Maybe I’m dense. Scratch that, I probably am. So, can somebody explain this aspect of it please? It would be helpful. Thanks.

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  7. Unionists,

    What, in your mind, is the substantial difference between these two propositions?

    #1. Progressive sanctification flows from justification.

    #2. Justification precedes progressive sanctification in the ordo salutis.

    Everyone I know who affirms #1, it seems to me, also means by it exactly what is asserted by #2.

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  8. Thanks, Nick. But it looks to me like union only compounds the problem of antinomianism. I have all of these benefits because of union. I didn’t do anything. So I’m justified, sanctified, etc. And the Roman Catholics are still wondering why I sin and what incentive I have to stop sinning.

    Also, what is definitive sanctification? I’ve never seen that in the confession. Isn’t it odd that union — which is supposed to be uber confessional — is always teamed up with a doctrine that has no standing in the confession?

    BTW, I don’t know of anyone who stress justification who also says that our sanctification comes from justification. What they do say is that our righteousness comes from justification (as well as sanctification). But the righteousness I have in justification is as much mine as is that which comes from sanctification. It seems to me that union folks are a little shy about how much imputed righteousness really is the believer’s. If it is not mine, I am without hope because sanctification will always be imperfect.

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  9. Kenneth, can you explain how union, which seems to be a favorite of the historia salutis outlook, winds up dictating ordo salutis matters? I don’t really understand why a Pauline eschatology would require such hair trigger precision about the ordo.

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  10. David, here’s one problem. If you overemphasize union you may be doing so because you think justification leads to antinomianism, and then you may be inclined to approve of Norman Shepherd’s ideas about obedient faith. In the history of Protestantism, being clear on justification has been much more important to the health of the churches (and their members) than being clear on union.

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  11. Hart:

    Then in the last two graphs we see fulsome praise for the doctrine of union, how it combines both justification and sanctification. Nick writes, “By union with Christ, believers have power to put indwelling sin to death.” But again, didn’t this post begin with the presence of sin in the Christian life, and evidence that indwelling sin has not died? Wasn’t the believer who sinned united to Christ? So how does union fix this problem?

    Jim:

    I wonder if perhaps you are thinking that union or definitive sanctification means perfect sanctification – for the “unionists” (surely you can do better than that name for us!?). Far as I can tell, the “unionists” do not regard definitive sanctification or union as meaning that we have or can defeat sin perfectly in this life. In fact, all the unionists I know readily admit that our sanctification will always be imperfect in this life. Can we have victory over sin, dieing to it in this life – yes. That is something we have already, definitively, in Christ. Furthermore, it is something that we can expereince throughout our lives. Can we do it perfectly? No. But, to put it simply, becoming a Christian has changed me. Where does that change come from? It comes from Christ himself. That is what union with Christ for sanctification means. Jesus by his Spirit and through his Word works in me in such a way that now I am able to say “no” to sin – albeit imperfectly. By God’s grace which comes to me from Christ and by being united to him by faith, I am able to resist sin now in a way I could not before I was united to Christ. Before I was united to Christ I was unable to not sin. But now that I am in Christ I am now able to not sin – however imperfectly. Here is an example. Before I was united to Christ by faith I could say no to porno – though I certainly would not want to say no to it. I would want it. And if I said no to it, it would have been for a reason other than the right reason (out of love for and gratitude to God). But now that I am in Christ I can say no porno (I am also able to say yes, unfortunately), and I can say no for a God glorifying reason – however mingled with other sinful motivations that may be. That is called sanctification. And such sanctification comes through grace alone, because of Christ alone, who is mine (and I his) by faith alone. This means that for the unionists sanctification comes as much by grace and Christ as does justification. And I rejoice in God for it. It is a comfort to me that my sanctification rests on my own inherent abilities (of which I have none in and of myself). My life is altogether different now than it would have otherwise been – even though it is still woefully imperfect.

    And just a side point. I don’t think everything we say or teach has to be found in the Confession. Certainly, it cannot go against the Confession. But orthodoxy Systematic Theology has never restricted its theologizing to only what the Confession says. Is definitive sanctification in the Confession – no. Does that make it off limits in the theologizing of the church? No. Is it teaching which is faithful to Scripture? Indeed, it is. Declaring the whole counsel of God means having to teach some things which the Confession does not address.

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  12. I agree with what Jim has said and would only add that definitive sanctification (so far as I understand Murray’s exposition of the biblical language) is made up of two parts. The first has to do with those in union with Christ being positionally sanctified. Not, only are we perfectly righteous through the imputation of His righteousness by faith alone (justification), but we are positionally sanctified as He was perfectly sanctified. Christ is our righteousness and our sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30-31). He was not only the justified One (1 Tim. 3:16), He is also the sanctified One. When Jesus prayed in John 17:19, “for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth,” He was speaking of Himself as the “Sanctified One.” We are positionally and really sanctified in Him. When the writer of Hebrews says, “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14), he is saying that we are definitively sanctified in Christ, and that this makes our progressive sanctification possible. When Paul addresses the members of the church as “saints,” he does so on the grounds of their definitive sanctification.

    But there is another dimension to our sanctification in Christ in the historia salutis–namely, that there has been a radical breach with the dominion of sin. Sin’s power was broken when Christ died to the power of sin for us. We died with Him, Paul repeatedly says. And the implication of that truth (i.e. of our union with Christ in His death and resurrection) is that sin does not have dominion over us. We are no longer slaves of sin. This does not mean that we have the power of perfection (a mistake the Keswick clan make when they read Rom. 6 & 8 while skipping over chapter 7). But it does mean that we are not enslaved to sin’s power. That radical once-for-all breach with sin is not what happened in justification. It is what happened in definitive sanctification. It happened on the cross.

    Jesus is our representative. God the Father chose us “in Christ” in eternity. When Jesus entered into time and space He did so for the elect (i.e. those “in Him” from eternity). Everything He did, He did for them. This means that we were united to Christ in His human life. When He died on the cross Nick and Darryl died on the cross. We were “crucified with Christ.” This is not manifested until we are savingly united to Christ in time (Romans 16:7).

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  14. Brian:

    #2 means, and historically has meant, that a man cannot be progressively sanctified without first being justified. This is sometimes expressed as “the indicative precedes the imperative.”

    #1 could mean that progressive sanctification is an automatic outworking of justification. Notably absent in the slogan is any mention of the work of the Spirit, in sharp contrast to Confessional teaching on sanctification and good works.

    This is not to say that DGH means to omit the work of the Spirit — I have full confidence in him on this point. It is just to say that the sentences “sanctification flows from justification” or “sanctification is caused by justification” are flawed theology.

    Coming back to your earlier question (“What is at stake?”), I hope you can see that making S an automatic outworking of J would be a retreat to the Catholic notion of justification.

    In the Catholic position, justification includes an element of transformation within it — a “righteousifying” of the person. A man’s justification includes a reduction of the tendency to sin; and thus, his justification automatically flows into his sanctification.

    In the Protestant position, justification is purely a forensic declaration of righteousness, the forgiveness of sins on account of Jesus — without any element of or requirement of transformation.

    (That justification always comes with transformation, of course, but the explanation for why that is the case is our union with Christ. Thus Calvin in Inst 3; thus WSC 30).

    Put short: in historic Protestant theology, there is nothing in our justification that transforms us. To deny this is to deny sola fide.

    The slogans “sanctification flows from justification” OR “justification causes sanctification”, unless heavily nuanced, threaten to obscure this fact.

    Does that help?

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  15. There is a proper sense of the phrase “sanctification flows from justification”, and I believe it is the sense that DGH and Horton have in mind — I just wish they would change their language about it.

    Sanctification is the work of the Spirit. The Spirit uses, in our lives, the knowledge of our justification to encourage us, to say to us, “If therefore you have died to sin, how can you live in it any longer?”

    In that sense, our sanctification does indeed flow out of our justification in a powerful way.

    The key nuance, though, is that sanctification is being caused by the Spirit, not by our justification itself.

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  16. Jim: And just a side point. I don’t think everything we say or teach has to be found in the Confession. Certainly, it cannot go against the Confession. But orthodoxy Systematic Theology has never restricted its theologizing to only what the Confession says. Is definitive sanctification in the Confession – no.

    True, but we have to be careful about binding peoples’ consciences to teachings that the Church has not seen fit to recognize. This is one reason to be skeptical of the “justification causes sanctification” or “sanctification flows out of justification” language. If that language were so important, why didn’t it show up in the Standards?

    So I agree with you that we are free to continue to explore the Scriptures. But I get nervous when we make extraConfessional teachings the test for orthodoxy.

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  17. Jeff, who is making definitive sanctification or “justification causes sanctification” a test for orthodoxy? I mean, maybe people are. They shouldn’t if they are – so here we’re agreed. But from what I understand this is a hearty in house debate. Do you know anyone who has been charged or accused or heresy because they either denied Definitive Sanctification or denied that Justification causes Sanctification?

    Blessings,

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  18. I would recommend that everyone listen to the following two Sinclair Ferguson lectures on union with Christ:

    [audio src="http://media1.wts.edu/media/audio/ferguson-westminster_theological_seminary-union_with_christ-1-2004g.mp3" /]

    [audio src="http://media1.wts.edu/media/audio/ferguson-westminster_theological_seminary-union_with_christ-2-2004g.mp3" /]

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  19. Jim,

    Thanks for this. But everything you attribute to union is actually also attributable to effectual calling and the work of the Spirit. Plus, what does historia salutis have to do with the application of redemption? I’m not trying to be stupid here. Obviously, the epoch making work of Christ has everything to do with redemption and its application. But I still find it odd that union has been hatched by a discovery of the historia — and in the schemes of ST that is fairly remote from the technicalities of the application of redemption.

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  20. Thanks, Dr Hart, for this question and concern: “The other source of confusion is the alleged solution that union seems to provide to believers who struggle with sin and doubt. Union is supposed to point to the power over indwelling sin that believers possess by virtue of union at precisely the time in their life when they are most aware of indwelling sin’s ongoing power. Since I sin, I have tested the capacity of union to ease my burdened soul. But I find much more comfort in the face of guilt to know that I no longer face condemnation.”

    We need to question the consensus that “dominion of sin” is not forensic. I know that most Reformed folks agree with John Murray and John Piper that Romans 6 is not about “justified from sin” alone, and there’s something “more”. In this they disagree with Hodge and Haldane and older theologians. But no matter.

    1. The context of Romans 6 is the righteousness of Christ in Romans 5:21. And that is not the righteousness produced in us by the indwelling of the Spirit.
    2. The reason given in Romans 6 for why sin shall not have dominion over you is “that you are not under law”. I know that now usually gets read redemptive-historically, so that it means that now that you are in the new covenant and have the indwelling, you can now do habitually better. But I think it means: you are not under guilt anymore, because as long as you were under guilt, you are free from righteousness, unable to please God.
    3. The most important reason I think this is that Romans 6 speaks of Christ being under the dominion of sin. Christ was never corrupt or unregenerate. Christ was under the imputed guilt of the elect, but is no longer, and when His elect are now placed into that SAME DEATH, they are no longer guilty.

    You have a point when observe that in the beginning there is talk about the cross, but then it gets to be about “union”. I am reminded of a booklet by (non-confessional) Paul Washer: he starts out saying “we need to preach Christ crucified” but then he dismisses theological differences about the atonement and justification, and says “it’s all about regeneration”.

    When folks say “it’s first of all about union”, they don’t usually define union, but it usually means “it’s not all about the justification of the ungodly”. And if that doesn’t mean regeneration, it does mean the Holy Spirit and faith and whatever else needed to make sure that the justification is not of those who are still ungodly.

    It does no good to say that “sanctification is by faith also”, if like Dan Fuller (or Norman Shepherd), we define “by faith” as “the works faith produces”.

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  21. Nick, this is where you lose me. I thought that the gospel was Christ dying in my place so that I wouldn’t have to. He got my sin, I got his righteousness. That is at the heart of imputation. But now you’re saying that I had to die with Christ. Can’t you see how this gets a little confusing when you’re trying to explain the gospel to people who thought they knew the gospel?

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  23. Jeff, we’ve been round this one before, but why can’t the legal transform? It does in the case of marriage — a legal reality changes us. I’m not saying that I like the causal language of justification and sanctification. But I don’t understand how it can be dismissed as wrong. We are talking about mysteries here.

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  24. Jim, you do know of course that the charge of Lutheran is quick from the lips of some unionists if you don’t make union the priority that unionists do. That’s not necessarily a charge of heresy. But it is language that suggests a certain view is beyond the boundaries. Which is odd to combine with the novel language of “definitive sanctification.” I wish we could all play from the same rule book.

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  25. Jeff (or others),

    Would you object if “Sanctification flows from justification” means the following?

    “The Christian life which produces the fruits of sanctification cannot be realized except through the assurance of grace that is grounded in justification.”

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  26. “There is nothing in our justification that transforms us. To deny this is to deny faith alone..The slogans ‘sanctification flows from justification”’ OR ‘justification causes sanctification, unless heavily nuanced, threaten to obscure this fact.”

    I would submit that it’s the “faith alone” which can obscure the forensic nature of justification. Justification is not because of faith, but because of the righteousness Christ obtained in history. When God imputes that righteousness, the result is justification through faith.

    The main idea of Mike Horton’s “covenantal ontology” is that “justification is not an inert but a living word, on a part with creation ex nihilio” (p 247). I understand when folks worry that this collapses justification with regeneration, but I think Horton is talking about God’s justification of the ungodly as God’s performative act that then causes the work of the Spirit in the elect believer. Romans 8:10 teaches Christ in you and “the Spirit is life BECAUSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”. Galatians 4:6 teaches that “because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts”.

    I would not say that “The Verdict Does What It Says”, but rather the “verdict declared legally constitutes as righteousness and this results in the renewal of the individual by the Spirit”.

    To quote Horton again: “Justification should be seen more clearly not merely as ontologically different from inner renewal, but also as the ontological source of that change.” (p198). Definitive holiness given at once in Christ is not the same as the Christan life which results from that definitive holiness (and from definitive justification). There is difference, but not antithesis, between justification and regeneration, because regeneration results from God’s imputation of righteousness.

    I hope we can all think about this, and not just call it “Lutheran”. Horton is saying that, even if regeneration and faith precede the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, it’s the righteousness which is the cause of the regeneration. Gaffin objects that the cause cannot come after the effect.

    1. I thought Gaffin didn’t care about order of application, but only about the history of redemption. 2. It turns out that Gaffin does have an order, and that it’s “union” before all else, whatever “union” is.

    Horton can certainly agree with Bruce McCormack that it’s problematic to make justification a function of regeneration, without at all blurring the difference between justification and regeneration. Also without endorsing the Barthian notion of God’s election as God’s present activity.

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  27. Dr Hart wrote: “I thought that the gospel was Christ dying in my place so that I wouldn’t have to. He got my sin, I got his righteousness. That is at the heart of imputation. But now you’re saying that I had to die with Christ.”

    II Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live would no longer live for themselves but who for themselves for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

    We can think about a “for” which is not substitution. I can score a goal for my team, without any idea that I am the only one playing the game. I score the goal for the sake of others on my team, and not only for myself, but that does not mean they do nothing and I do everything.

    But in II Corinthians 5:14-15, it is not the “for” which get us to the idea of substitution. What gets us to substitution is “therefore all died”. It is a mistake to reference the death of the all to some renewal EXPERIENCE that believers have. The death of all is not their repentance. Nor does “those who live” refer to faith or to conversion.

    The idea is not that Christ died one kind of death and as a result believers die another kind of death. The idea is NOT that Christ rose again from death and as a result believers now experience by faith “union” and thus the possibility of habitually not having indwelling sin. Rather, the idea is that the death Christ died, to propitiate God’s wrath because of imputed sins, is the death which is credited and counted to the elect.

    The elect do not die this kind of death. Their substitute died it for them. Christ alone, by Himself, without them, died this death. And it is that death, not some other kind of death, which II Cor 5:15 teaches “all died.”

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  29. Warfield, as quoted in this link below, has no problem saying that “justification is the instrumental cause of sanctification.” For the sake of achieving greater clarity of these issues, can those who know please comment on how Warfield’s remarks here fit into this discussion? Was he mistaken? Is he lapsing into a Lutheran way of speaking?

    http://pilgrimagetogeneva.com/2011/03/15/b-b-warfield-on-lutheranism-and-justification-via-water-is-thicker-than-blood/

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  31. Darryl,

    I’m glad you raised the question, and I appreciate that you invoked the name of Vos. You may recall that I accused you in a previous post of being anti-Vossian (which you denied); but I think it is precisely on this particular theological issue, that I believe you read Vos differently than I do. To clarify, I will first repost the Vos quote I referred to earlier, and then I will try to show how my understanding can reconcile Rom 6 as both an accomplished act and a progressive fulfillment.

    It [referring to both creation as God’s general revelation and Scripture as God’s special revelation]constitutes a part of that great process of the new creation through which the present universe as an organic whole shall be redeemed from the consequences of sin and restored to its ideal state, which it had originally in the intention of God. Now, this new creation, in the objective, universal sense, is not something completed by a single act all at once, but is a history with its own law of organic development. It could not be otherwise, inasmuch as at every point it proceeds on the basis of and in contact with the natural development of this world and of the human race, and, the latter being in the form of history, the former must necessarily assume that form likewise. It is simply owing to our habit of unduly separating revelation from this comprehensive background of the total redeeming work of God, that we fail to appreciate its historic, progressive nature.

    What I see Vos saying, and Nick et. al. expounding, is that God emerged from eternity in both His act of Creation, represented by Adam, and His act of redemption represented by Christ. When Christ died on the cross (in the same way as when Adam first sinned), all of elect humanity died with Him at that precise point in time. What Paul is teaching in Rom 6 is that baptism with Christ is the sign that by faith, those who believe in Christ (which he has been talking about in Rom 3 through 5) have died with Him when He died. In other words, they have died as an accomplished act of Christ when He died. It is for this very reason that Paul then goes on to say that, given this truth, we also might walk (not have walked)in newness of His resurrected life. This is how I make sense of what Vos means when he says that “this new creation, in the objective, universal sense, is not something completed by a single act all at once, but is a history with its own law of organic development.”

    The key point to focus on here is that Vos is talking about “the objective, universal sense not being completed by a single act as opposed to the eternal sense of the act of Christ completed. So Paul, with regard to who we are in Christ as dead (past act) yet in history as needing to live (present and future) in Romans 6 through 8 is saying the same thing he says in Eph 4:10-16:

    10 He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

    14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

    It is in this historical and future sense that Vos meant when he said “through which the present universe as an organic whole shall be redeemed from the consequences of sin and restored to its ideal state”. The “whole universe” is being filled with Christ as all of His people, already united to Him in His death, are growing up into Him. And when His people have reached full maturity, the creation will willingly (as opposed to its non-willing submission to corruption) submit to the dominion of rulership by Christ, represented by redeeemed humanity.

    Any view that maintaiins that the earth will be destroyed cannot fulfill Vos’ vision, which I believe accords perfectly with Scripture, since humanity and creation cannot be severed or separted now or in the eschaton, but are as an organic whole redeemed. And this is why Scripture continually reminds us to be who we already are in Christ by His death, and who we will be in Christ because of His resurrection. It is the “who we will be” upon which we are to focus our hope and why we should and are continually exhorted by the Word/Spirit to have the mind of Christ, rather than focus on what we should not do (i.e., rules and regulations). And it is why I favor Hunter’s view of the faithful presence without regard to “reforming the world” since, as we all know, it is God who is taking care of all of that.

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  32. Nick, Paul also says that Christ died FOR the ungodly. The important question is whether we are talking about death as a propitiation for sin, or death as a change of nature. Either way, to say that we “died with Christ” is the gospel is not the clearest expression we can find.

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  33. Don, as I said to Nick, Paul also writes that Christ died for sinners. Not only is propitiation involved in this idea, but also substitution. Over and over again the sacrifices of the OT signify this substitutionary aspect of death — that is, because the scape goat dies, believers don’t have to. Is that wrong? Most of the Protestant world has believed that when they affirm the vicarious atonement. So as long as union doesn’t blur this truth, fine. It is part of the application of redemption. I get it. But it doesn’t provide the comfort or clarity that substitution does. And I’m not sure that Vos really had his eye on the ordo salutis. Then again, he did come from an Afscheiding background.

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  35. Darryl, I obviously can’t speak for Nick, but I see Paul trying to set the Roman Christians, both Jew and gentile, straight by declaring to them both that Christ’s death was the precise moment in time when humanity was finally reconciled to God and when, from that point forward, God’s Spirit would be poured out (as signified and sealed by baptism) upon all who believe (i.e., are justified by faith). So the death of Christ was substitutionary, paying for the sins of Adam and all who sinned after him, until His death. At that point, and thereafter, sin no longer reigned in spiritual death over sinners (i.e., born of Adam) who receive the new life signified by baptism and demonstrated in continuing to “walk in the Spirit.” Our nature is not changed as a result of Christ’s death. Rather, the power of our nature to rule over us unto death is removed (not that it doesn’t still entice us) and a new nature, the life of Christ (the “free gift” of Rom 5:18)is given to us so that when our sinful nature (referred to as sin in Romans 7) leads us to sin, the life of Christ leads us to repent and receive the forgivenss which Christ obtained for us at His death, and to justification of life. “Justification of life” is not merely justification which issues in eternal life in the end, but a present justification of life as opposed to the condemnation of the previous clause in Rom 5:18. That life is the power to fulfil the holy law or will of God as explicitly described by Paul in Rom 8:1-4.

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  36. Brian: Would you object if “Sanctification flows from justification” means the following?

    “The Christian life which produces the fruits of sanctification cannot be realized except through the assurance of grace that is grounded in justification.”

    I do actually think the language could be improved. The Confession focuses much, as did Calvin, on the agency of the Spirit. My central objection has to do with the fact that the Spirit vanishes from the language and we are left with justification doing stuff by itself.

    In the case of your language, we have a case of the “divine passive” — “cannot be realized.” Who is the one doing the realizing?

    But yes, I agree with what you say as far it goes. It just needs to go a bit further.

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  37. DGH: Jeff, we’ve been round this one before, but why can’t the legal transform?

    So you wouldn’t have a problem with someone saying … say, N. Shepherd … that justifying faith includes a tendency towards good works?

    If we can include transformation in our justification, then there’s no particular reason that we can’t include works in our justifying faith.

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  38. DGH: Jeff, and you’ll admit that when unionists say that union causes justification and sanctification they get a little wooden themselves?

    Well, no, I don’t find Calvin wooden on this point, but insightful and clear. We cannot receive anything from Christ being outside of him. When once united by faith to him, we receive the two graces of justification and “regeneration” (= sanctification), which are always distinct but never separated.

    Calvin thus cuts through the Catholic doctrine of justification and simultaneously gives us a tool against antinomianism and legalism.

    It’s a really elegant solution, and I’m puzzled as to why it’s puzzling. I can’t tell whether I’m being obtuse or you are. 🙂

    But to your credit, I can see why it’s confusing when some try to back up union with Christ into eternity past. As far as I can tell in Scripture and the Standards, we are united to Christ in our effectual calling.

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  39. David R: I do think Warfield is overreacting. Put it this way: why is the language “justification causes sanctification” not only not in the Confession or the Catechisms, but not even hinted at in those standards of faith?

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  40. Jeff, I’m not sure whether or not there’s a hint of that in the Standards, but apparently, it’s not an uncommon understanding. For example, Fisher’s Catechism, in his section on sanctification, has these two Q&As:

    Q. 15. How do they [i.e., justification and sanctification] differ in their order?

    A. Although, as to time, they are simultaneous; yet, as to the order of nature, justification goes BEFORE sanctification, as the cause before the effect, or as fire is before light and heat.

    Q. 17. How do they differ as to their ingredients?

    A. The main ingredient in justification is the grace and love of God towards us, manifested in pardoning and accepting us in Christ; whereas the main ingredient in sanctification is our gratitude and love to God, flowing from his love to us, and appearing in our obedience and keeping his commandments, by virtue of his “Spirit put within us, and causing us to walk in his statutes,” Ezek. 36:27.

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  41. David, explain further. In 15, he uses “cause and effect” as an analogy; in 17, he sees sanctification flowing from his love to us (not from our justification).

    15 certainly hints at a kind of causatory language; but what are you seeing in 17?

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  42. What I really want to know, Darryl, is where in the world is Waldo in that picture? I can’t find him anywhere.

    Sorry, just thought I’d break the tension . . .

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  44. Jeff, in 17, he says that the main ingredient in sanctification “flows from” the main ingredient in justification. That sounds like causal language too.

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  45. Nick: “It is in the redemptive-historical union that we have with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection that breaks the power of sin’s dominion in us. Now, when we speak of union, I would follow Gaffin’s three-fold distinction (i.e. (1) decreetal, Eph. 1:4; (2) redemptive-historical, Rom. 6:1-4 and Col. 2:20-3:4; and (3) existential, Rom. 16:7.”

    Jeff: “It’s confusing when some try to back up union into eternity. We are united to Christ in effectual calling.”

    Mark McCulley: And this is why some of us are confused. On the other hand, it’s granted that one aspect of “union” is eternal (decree) election in Christ. But on the other hand, we are told that it’s not the legal connection but rather the effectual calling (redemptive-historical) which “breaks the power of sin’s dominion.”

    1. There’s the matter of shifting definitions. Election as eternal union is not denied, baptism into Christ’s death by legal imputation is not denied, but when it comes to “breaking the power of sin’s dominion”, it’s not justification from guilt (not being under the law) which is the key factor. Rather, it’s effectual calling.
    2. So some of us wonder why unionists don’t simply define “union” as the effectual calling. Instead of God baptizing the elect into the atonement, instead of Christ baptizing the justified with the Spirit, the emphasis always comes down to some idea of “the Spirit putting us into Christ”
    3. So “union” is the everything which is the foundation of everything? Or is union the faith given to the elect by the Spirit? The definition seems to keep changing.

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  46. Mike Horton on covenant union

    “If union with Christ in the covenant of grace is the matrix for Paul’s ordo, justification remains its source, even for adoption. We do not move from the topic of justification to other ones, but are always relating the riches of our inheritance to this decisive gift.

    In the words of William Ames, ‘Adoption of its own nature requires and presupposes the reconciliation found in justification … The first fruit of adoption is that Christian liberty by which all believers are freed from the bondage of the law, sin, and the world.’

    Adoption, like justification, is simultaneously legal and relational, as is the obverse: alienation and condemnation. The tendency to replace the legal exchange with some notion of a transfer of substance, properties, or habits in justification would have as its corollary a concept of adoption in which the adoptee, no longer adopted, receives a transfer of DNA.

    To be sure there are organic as well as legal images for complementary aspects of the wider ordo. Particularly when we exchange a causal paradigm for a communicative one, however, false choices are eliminated. Reformation theology does not leave us in the courtroom, but it is the basis for our relocation to the family room.” (246)

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  47. L Berkhof (systematic, p452)

    “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. “

    “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.”

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  48. M Volf,p 151,Free of Charge– “Both our transformation and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness depend on union with Christ…Because we are one, Christ’s qualities are our qualities…It has become clear that forgiveness is part of SOMETHING MUCH LARGER. God doesn’t just forgive sin; he transforms sinners into Christ-like figures There is something much MORE BASIC than forgiveness—the presence and activity of Christ in human beings. “

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  49. And finally from me tonight– the often quoted words of 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.”

    mark mc: You can quote it every time, but quoting it still doesn’t mean that Calvin is right about this question in either emphasis or in truth.

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  50. Don, the law was, do this and live. Don’t do it and die. Death is punishment for sin. Salvation is eternal life through the death of Christ. To say that we must die (in one sense) is at odds with the entire logic of Scripture. Again, I’m not disputing the death of Christians in the sense of mortification (i.e. sanctification). But it is categorically different from Christ’s death and descent into hell.

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  51. Jeff, I don’t understand. Justification causing sanctification does not mean dissolving a distinction between the two. My opening a can of food causes my cat to meow. The lid and the can are still distinct.

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  52. Jeff, But Rick Philips said that union causes just. and sanct. and no one blew any whistles. Unionists use causal language.

    And how does Calvin’s answer satisfy the charge of antinomianism? It only heightens it. Now by faith I am both justified and sanctified. What motivation, the Roman Catholic asks, do I have to do any good works?

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  56. Mark Mc., so what you’re saying is that union-centrism has broad appeal in shaky theological circles, but if you insist on the priority of justification you’re not Reformed but Lutheran? Wow!

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  57. I believe he was speaking about Barth when he was talking about “christocentrism” here, but Muller seems to find something of the same inclination in those who would make “union with Christ” as something of a central motif in Calvin’s thought in this passage:

    “Unfortunately we are moving not so much beyond such fallacious argumentation as into a new phase of the same: as the language of christocentrism has worn old, the new centrism has tried to impose a model of union with Christ on Calvin’s theology and then to make the same sort of negative claim about later ‘Calvinists’: now that Calvin can be seen to focus on union with Christ, his thought can be radically separated from the later Calvinists who purportedly never thought of the concept. We can speculate that, when the union with Christ theme has run its course, there will be another false center identified for Calvin’s thought that can then be juxtaposed with the purported centers or omissions of later Reformed theology” (Dr. Richard A. Muller, Was Calvin a Calvinist? Or, Did Calvin (or Anyone Else in the Early Modern Era) Plant the ‘TULIP’?).

    Reformed Orthodoxy appears to not have placed “union with Christ” centrally. Is it unfair to say that the “unionists” do make it central?

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  58. Hey guys. I appreciate this discussion, as I’ve been struggling through this topic for a while now. I just preached through Rom. 6:1-14, read a lot, listened to sermons, and even Robert Charles admits that Romans 6 is one of those passages he would like to pass over at times! My sermon is not online!

    Here’s a question for you. Or two. Or three.
    1. How did I die with Christ at Calvary, if I was not alive at his death? (I’ve read much of Gaffin’s book. My comments on that will not help at this point.)
    2. What significance does the word ‘LIKENESS’ have in Romans 6:14? (Even Murray notes that the death and resurrection of Christ are analogous to the believer’s death to sin, and resurrection into newness of life.)
    3. What role does my first act of saving faith come into play with my union with Christ? I guess my point is, could it not be that Paul is speaking FEDERALLY in Rom. 6 just as he spoke FEDERALLY in Rom. 5? Thus he tells Christians to consider the meaning of their Baptism (I believe spiritual, signified by water!), and to make that baptism good. ‘Consider yourselves dead to sin,’ etc. cf. Rom. 6:11. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, etc. Fuzzy exegesis?

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  59. For what its worth, I believe that Muller et al are incorrect to say that there is no historical precedent for seeing union with Christ as what makes all the soteriological blessings come to really and truly be possessed by the elect. Consider the wording of Westminster Shorter Catechism 69:

    Q. 69. What is the communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?

    A. The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ,is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation,in their justification,adoption, sanctification,and whatever else,in this life, manifests their union with him.

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  60. Darryl,

    I am amazed by your diligence in considering and addressing the many thoughts provoked by your post. When do you sleep?

    In your response to my post, you have put your finger on the nerve of this debate. Regarding death, I would want to reword your statement “that death is punishment for sin” to “death is the consequence of sin.” I do not deny that death is a punishment in the strictest sense, but the punishment is meant as a life giving correction. So when Christ died in our place as a substitute, He did not do it for me only as an individual, He did it according to Go’ds plan for humanity in order to defeat the power of sin unto spiritual death for all of His people (i.e., redeemed humanity). Until then, humanity only had the nature of Adam, which could not possibly live unto God/eternal life. This is what Paul means in Rom 8:3 when he said that the law is good, but because of the flesh, i.e., the Adam nature, it was necessary for God to condemn sin in the flesh of His own Son. So I absolutely agree with you that our mortification to sin/sanctification is categorically different from Christ’s death and descent into hell. What you are implying (I think), is that our mortification to sin is just the opposite of death – it is life or more accurately the life of Christ as Paul says in Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith. Union with Christ then is union with His death as a member of humanity, and union with His life as an individual saved by faith.

    I do not accept (this is a mild understatement) Horton’s (et.al.) hermenutic of law versus Gospel for dividing scripture. The Bible is far more comfortably read as dividing human beings into those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ. For those who are in Christ, all of the Bible is Gospel, since Christ is the telos of the law. For those who are in Adam, all of the Bible is law, since they cannot possibly love God.

    To press my point, how would you categorize Romans 10:5 and Romans 10:10. To those in Adam, it is as impossible to believe with your heart as it is to practice the righteousness which is based on the law. Since Christ is the telos of the law, however, both verses are Gospel to those in Christ because they pursue the righteousness which is based on law through faith, rather than as if it were based on works (Rom 9:32).

    I hope we can keep talking on this because I so greatly respect your insight and thinking, especially on ecclesiology.

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  61. Nick, I’ve asked this of other unionists — if this q & a is so central to the Divines, why did they devote a chapter to effectual calling and not one to union?

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  62. The way so-called “unionists” refer to union with Christ today is basically effectual calling among the Westminster divines. Terms change over centuries (decades, sometimes), like “regeneration”. It gradually became narrower in meaning than when used in the sixteenth century.

    The Puritans, who were – ahem – either Presbyterian or Congregationalist, but not “Independent”, typically referred to union with Christ as the pre-eminent blessing, without which there was no justification, adoption, or sanctification. Union with Christ even preceded regeneration for some of the more notable Reformed theologians; and there’s no question that justification followed from union and thus depended on it.

    Nick, where did Muller say what you attribute to him? He would agree – I am almost certain – that union with Christ makes possible other soteric benefits, but what he’s opposing in the paragraph above is something entirely different, namely “centrism”.

    I’m personally persuaded that union with Christ is the principle and measure of all spiritual enjoyments and expectations; and that it is the greatest, most honourable, and glorious of all graces that we are made partakers of. But that’s because I read John Owen, not Dick Gaffin!

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  63. The WCF devotes an entire chapter to the Law but no chapter on the Gospel. It also devotes a chapter on oaths and vows. But again, no chapter on the Gospel or even a chapter on the all important law/gospel distinction. I wonder what we should conclude from this observation.

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  64. Dear Dr Hart, I have confused you if you think I am speaking in favor of the “unionists’. I am on your side on this topic.

    1. I posted on II Cor 5:15 to say that “died with” means “Christ died for, instead of us.” You have been right to press this concern. Substitution and imputation are our most basic hope, not that which God is in us or does in us.

    2. I am neither Reformed Paedobaptist or Lutheran. What I wrote was :”DON’T call this Lutheran.” I was attempting to say —Don’t make this an issue about a label, when it’s an issue about what texts like Romans 5-6, or Galatians 3-4 say. So I was certainly not dismissing anything as “Lutheran”. Indeed, if asked to locate myself, I hesitate to call myself “Reformed Baptist” because to many folks that means a Paul Washer gospel dominated by concerns about “regeneration” (which is often called “union”) rather than about justification and atonement. So I sometimes call myself “Lutheran-Baptist”.

    3. When I say that, I am not making any claim about what specific Reformed or Lutheran confessions are saying about the “third use”. Rather, I am saying that I am NOT an “evangelical”. With Don Dayton, I define “evangelical” as the political alliance in which everybody says they like Billy Graham or loses their jobs.

    4. I know that this is not about me. But our failure to communicate (the fault is surely mine) must be in part because you don’t me or where I am coming from.

    5. Of course there is an imperative to conform to the pattern of the death of Christ. But I agree with you that the legal foundation of all hope is Christ’s death for the elect. To be placed legally into that death and resurrection is justification.

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  65. DGH: Justification causing sanctification does not mean dissolving a distinction between the two. My opening a can of food causes my cat to meow. The lid and the can are still distinct.

    Your analogy illustrates the problem.

    Your cat is an agent responding to the stimulus of hearing the can-opener on metal. “What a lovely sound”, she thinks, and does what comes naturally.

    By analogy, then, you would have us say that we are agents responding to the stimulus of our justification. “What an amazing thing God has done for us!” we think, and do what comes naturally.

    That’s the perfectly normal sense of the words “justification causes sanctification.”

    The Confession, however, places the Spirit as the agent of our sanctification. He might use the knowledge of our justification to motivate our sanctification (as well the law – WCoF 13.1), but He is the agent, the cause of our sanctification.

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  66. Reading back in the thread, I see that there was another “Mark”. A Mark who is not Mark McCulley. That also must have been confusing!

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  67. “The WCF devotes an entire chapter to the Law but no chapter on the Gospel. It also devotes a chapter on oaths and vows. But again, no chapter on the Gospel or even a chapter on the all important law/gospel distinction. I wonder what we should conclude from this observation.”

    DPF, I think we should conclude that you didn’t find a chapter called “The Gospel” or a chapter called “Law and Gospel.” Chapters 6-12 and 14 have plenty of law and gospel.

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  68. “Michael Mann”

    I think you missed Patrick’s point.

    And, of course there’s a reason the Savoy divines added ch. 20 on the gospel to their confession, but you probably knew that, right?

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  69. Mark, I just took his comment at face value. I don’t see any information in your comment. If you want to provide some I’m all ears.

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  70. The point being that DGH made the following comment: “Nick, I’ve asked this of other unionists — if this q & a is so central to the Divines, why did they devote a chapter to effectual calling and not one to union?”

    I responded above with an explanation and Patrick showed that we should be cautious about assuming the importance of a subject based on whether a chapter is devoted to it or not. Theology and confessionalization is a little more complex than that.

    The fact is that union with Christ was central to the divines and I can provide dozens of persons, quotes, etc., to prove that. But, I’m afraid, no amount of evidence will sway those whose minds are already made up.

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  71. Whoa, Mark, I’ve mostly stayed out of these union discussions. I’m just reading and learning. Maybe I said something dumb, but I didn’t say it with an agenda.

    “But, I’m afraid, no amount of evidence will sway those whose minds are already made up.” Typically, Mark, folks active on a topic have a strong opinion and probably won’t be swayed mid-conversation. I’d encourage you to just have the conversation.

    I’m not trying to say I’m a blank slate, although some will make that argument. I just haven’t pointedly studied the issue so I’ll bow out and go back to listening mode.

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  72. Michael Mann,

    I was actually referring to DGH who keeps beating this drum, but never really understanding the issue – at least, not from the perspective of the Reformed orthodox in the 16th and 17th centuries.

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  73. DGH: And how does Calvin’s answer satisfy the charge of antinomianism? It only heightens it. Now by faith I am both justified and sanctified. What motivation, the Roman Catholic asks, do I have to do any good works?

    RC apologist: “You, O Protestant, are a latent antinomian. For you deny that

    Justification itself, which is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man, through the voluntary reception of the grace, and of the gifts, whereby man of unjust becomes just, and of an enemy a friend, that so he may be an heir according to hope of life everlasting. ‘ (Trent 6.7)

    In so denying, you pretend it possible for a man to be justified and yet disregard God’s law altogether. You give aid and comfort to those who

    [say], that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema.

    Trent 6, Canon 20

    Calvin:

    …certain ungodly men … charge us, first, with destroying good works and leading men away from the study of them, when we say, that men are not justified, and do not merit salvation by works … [A]s the question relates only to justification and sanctification, to them let us confine ourselves. Though we distinguish between them, they are both inseparably comprehended in Christ. Would ye then obtain justification in Christ? You must previously possess Christ. But you cannot possess him without being made a partaker of his sanctification: for Christ cannot be divided. Since the Lord, therefore, does not grant us the enjoyment of these blessings without bestowing himself, he bestows both at once but never the one without the other. Thus it appears how true it is that we are justified not without, and yet not by works, since in the participation of Christ, by which we are justified, is contained not less sanctification than justification.

    — Inst 3.16.1

    Union answers your question, Darryl. It is not the case that justification causes sanctification, but that possessing Christ causes both. It is not the case that our sanctification in Christ gives cause to ignore the law, but rather to “perfect holiness in the fear of God.”

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  74. Dr. Hart:

    I’ve been following your comments on “unionism” for a while now, and your confusion (not to be smart) has me confused.

    I’ve always understood WSC 30 to declare union with Christ to be the product of our effectual calling (“…thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.”). Effectual calling I’ve always taken to refer to that complex of internal changes done by the Spirit that produces true saving faith and its fruit. The benefits of effectual calling (WSC 32-36) ought to be distinguished (as you rightly note) but not separated (ala WCF XI.2) since faith is never alone in the person justified. So then, union with Christ is shorthand for the total effect that effectual calling has upon our connection to Jesus. It’s shorthand for both the imputed and infused righteousness that we receive from Christ as our “head and husband” (WLC 66). A separate chapter on union with Christ in the WCF, it seems to me, would be redundant since so much of this is covered elsewhere in the Standards. Additionally, the WLC itself identifies union with Christ as “mystical.” I take that to mean that the divines really didn’t see a way to distinguish things further than they already had in the other parts of the Standards. Lastly, I think a benefit of the doctrine of union with Christ that both Paul and contemporary (biblical) preachers derive is that it gives us a way of talking about the believer’s relation to Christ in a way that doesn’t feel like you’re preaching with Legos all the time. In other words, sometimes you can just talk about our connection to Christ as a whole, instead of constantly distinguishing between the forensic and infused aspects of grace. This practice needs to be balanced with emphasis on those distinctions of course, but that’s a pastoral matter, as I see it, not a theological one.

    At any rate, with all of your discussion about this topic, I feel like I may have missed something and that the above is all out to lunch. Dr. Horton’s article (http://bit.ly/fKvt5H) was formative in helping me reach the above conclusions. Maybe I have misunderstood him too!

    If you get the chance to hit reply, that would be great. 🙂

    Ken

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  76. Jeff, no one here is actually talking about what happens inside us since it’s mystery. What we are talking about is the way we talk about this. So my point is that using causal language does not turn two things into one. Everyone knows that cat and can lid are still distinct when I describe what happens when I feed my feline.

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  77. Mark (without the Mc), and unionists may want to be equally cautious in how much they assert the centrality of union — even to the point of saying that without it you turn Lutheran.

    And part of the reason I don’t understand is because unionists are not clear — such as the kind of blurring of language that I noted in the post (no offense to Nick). And if the Standards are supposed to be clear on this, why don’t unionists talk more about effectual calling which is fairly clear in the Standards.

    The reason for the lack of clarity, I believe, is that more cheer leading for union goes on than actual explanation. If unionists would stop giving each other high fives, they might actually notice that other people are in the room who don’t understand all the hoopla.

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  78. Jeff, the Roman Catholic is still wondering what the incentive is for doing good works. If I’m justified, definitively sanctified, and sanctified, why can’t I coast? Union only adds to the charge of antinomianism. I don’t understand why you don’t see this.

    What I mean is this — since sanctification and good works are not the same — the unionist and justification prioritist are both left saying the same thing to the RC who wonders where good works come from. We both have to say, “good works inevitably follow from [insert your favorite doctrine here].” And the RC thinks, “that’ll work.”

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  79. Ken, here’s a stab. I’m a sinner. I like hearing that I no longer face condemnation. Maybe it’s just me. I have heard lots of preachers tell me about my union with Christ. But it does not satisfy my guilt stricken conscience. Justification does. And to preach union without the legos is to neglect the comfort that we actually find in Christ’s righteousness.

    In other words, justification was the crux of the Reformation (even Murray said that), not union. And no amount of rereading the Standards on union is going to change that. But this isn’t merely a historical question. Justification is still the crux of the remedy for sin. How the benefit gets applied is of course part of theology. But the remedy is different from the application and the talk about union in my estimation too often obscures the work of Christ as vicarious sacrifice and living a sinless life with the work of the Spirit.

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  80. DGH: Jeff, no one here is actually talking about what happens inside us since it’s mystery. What we are talking about is the way we talk about this.

    Quite. And the way we talk suggests certain things about what happens inside us.

    “Justification causes sanctification” suggests a very wrong thing, that our forensic status, by itself, has the power to make changes in our nature.

    Again, I don’t think you believe that justification operates autonomously. That being the case, I’m requesting that you not *talk* as if you believed it.

    Does that make sense?

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  81. DGH: Jeff, the Roman Catholic is still wondering what the incentive is for doing good works.

    The RC isn’t going to be satisfied, ever. The Church has told him that Protestants are latent antinomians, and that settles it for him.

    But what about you? Calvin has answered the charge of antinomianism. Do you agree with his answer?

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  82. DGH: I have heard lots of preachers tell me about my union with Christ. But it does not satisfy my guilt stricken conscience. Justification does.

    I wonder what kind of preaching you have heard. Didn’t those preachers tell you that being united with Christ means that His righteousness is reckoned entirely to you, so that your justification is assured? That we want to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of our own, but a righteousness that is by faith?

    Seems like that ought to have provided the comfort you (and I) need.

    What is our only hope in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.

    Brother (and father) Hart, might I suggest setting aside the Westminster east/west controversy, and go back in time and read Calvin and the earlier theologians with an eye towards detecting union?

    You seem so eager to minimize union that you are missing some plain, big things.

    Such as: Union => forensic + transformative benefits = federal headship + indwelling of the Spirit. Both of those benefits are applied to us by being united to Christ, which occurs in our effectual calling.

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  86. Jeff, welcome back from your wife imposed exile. Speaking of which, as a member of the justification-priority party, I really do think the biblical metaphor of marriage does wonders for this conversation. I read (and read and read) unionists and can never help feel like I am listening to the theological version of those who want to emphasize the inward love and heart-union of a couple and downplay the forensic declaration that binds. I’m quite sure this doesn’t solve anything, but it does seem odd to me for those who would also want to emphasize institutional marriage against a ubiquitous romanticism.

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  87. Jeff,

    Red herring. My point is that assurance of union always comes first through assurance of justification, and this is because justification is promised to the ungodly.

    Union, as an “all-embracing” category, ought to produce the kind of fruit that includes obedience. The blessing of justification does not produce (or, as you and others have pointed out, “cause”) obedience. So if the focus of my assurance is on what union ought to manifest, then I’m looking at both faith and works. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as it is put in its proper place (priority). These broader fruits of union, which include obedience, are indeed a secondary source of assurance–there’s a reason why the “inward evidence” of graces is listed second, rather than first, in WCF 18.3. The primary source of assurance is rather found in the first thing listed in 18.3, the promises of God, something external to us. Because that promise is made to those who are themselves ungodly, here is how we know that God receive sinners and that these promises do apply to them, even when the fruits of union (obedience included) are not evident to others or to themselves. If all I need to be, covenantally, before God, in order to qualify for receiving justification is “ungodly,” then I am confident that I meet this qualification, and this confidence gives him further assurance that all the rest of it will come from God in Christ. If God is for me (a matter of favor/forensic standing), then how will he not also give me all things (all blessings and fruits of union in full)?

    The real issue behind this debate is the nature of assurance and upon what it ultimately/primarily rests.

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  88. Dear Dr. Hart,

    I am so very appreciative of your thoughtful and consise posts and comments. I have been greatly helped by this particular post and thread of comments. It is so encouraging to have someone to fight against the idea that “well meaning” and “good intentions” do not hold the purse strings of comfort in Lord. It is often that what people “want” to hear is not what they need to hear. Of course it is in love that all things should be said.

    Paul states in Romans 4:7,8: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

    Thank you

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  90. Brian:

    I’m not following you entirely (sorry). You seem to be saying that the first and foremost ground of our assurance is the promises of God, and specifically the promise of God to justify the ungodly by faith for the sake of Christ.

    Amen.

    But how you relate that to union is less clear. From my perspective, the forensic aspect of our union is Christ’s federal headship over us. That headship is grounded in the promises of God.

    So my assurance that I’m united to Christ is not grounded in good works, but in the promises of God — for it is faith that unites, and not works.

    And that’s why I asked you about your assurance of justification. Far from tossing a red herring, I was trying to point out that your answer is the same as mine … because you and I are both assured objectively, by the promises of God; not subjectively, according to our holiness.

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  91. Zrim: I read (and read and read) unionists and can never help feel like I am listening to the theological version of those who want to emphasize the inward love and heart-union of a couple and downplay the forensic declaration that binds.

    Now see, you’ve been reading the same unionists that preach the sermons DGH listens to. Who *are* these people?

    The union-emphasizing friends of mine speak of the Great Exchange, in which our sin is laid on Christ and His righteousness given to us. Or of sanctification being a work of the Spirit (as opposed to a work of the flesh), appropriated by faith and centered in a knowledge of our justification.

    I don’t recall Calvin saying anything about union being “inward love” and “heart-union.” I do recall, however, that he says that we must first possess Christ (union) before we can be justified (verdict).

    So the marriage thing breaks down a bit, no?

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  92. Jeff,

    Perhaps this can clarify where I’m at: I am well-convinced already that the category of union with Christ is beneficial for faith to dwell upon in the reflex act of faith–faith reflecting on itself, and its own fruits, discerning whether or not we are truly in Christ. It is our duty to exercise faith in its reflex act, and it is one of the ways we are duty-bound to cultivate assurance of grace in the Christian life.

    However, I’m not (yet) convinced that the same can be said when it comes to the direct act of faith–faith reflecting on its object, namely Christ, his sufficiency, his promises, and his free offer of grace to sinners. What does union with Christ have to do with the direct act of faith?

    The reason this is important is because the reflex act depends on the direct act. If I exercise faith in its reflex act (examining myself), and the result is despair, then I can always fall back upon the direct act (looking to Christ).

    It seems to me that, in my admittedly minimal reading of the 17th century, this is how the the category of “union with Christ’ was used in those theologians I’ve read. This is what they seem to mean when they use that language, quite apart from what seems to me a more recent understanding in which union is connected so closely to the historia salutis.

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  93. Jeff, sorry, but since one version of union (federal) is a forensic concept, then you are saying that the forensic changes our nature. Which kind of union are you talking about? And is it really union that changes us, or the Spirit? (BTW, why do JP’s have to give credit to the Spirit but unionists can merely speak of the doctrine?)

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  94. Brian, thanks for the clarification. I sense that you are suspicious of the reflex act of faith, as am I. There is a place for self-examination, but that place is far eclipsed by the need to look to Christ.

    In Calvin, it is the direct act of faith that receives Christ, and thereby appropriates his benefits. This understanding of union then informs WSC 30.

    I agree with you that the tying of union to the historia salutis is not in view — at least not obviously — in the 16th and 17th century Reformers, and I don’t know what to make of that development. Truth be told, I mostly ignore it.

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  95. Jeff, Calvin didn’t answer the charge of where good works come from — unless you’re equating sanctification with good works, a no-no, as I understand from unionists. Good works inevitably follow from justification, or sanctification, or union. But in no case does this benefit produce good works. So Calvin doesn’t give a satisfactory answer to the Roman Catholic. And if the RC is never going to be satisfied, why have I heard union repeatedly appealed to as the answer to antinomianism that justification fails to give?

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  96. Jeff, back at you. You seem so eager to maximize union that you fail to notice that in the Reformation justification — the reality described by it — was the basis for assurance, not union. And this is what I find puzzling. You make it seem like the material principle of the Reformation needs the help of union, and you don’t seem to recognize the discredit that formulation pays to Protestantism. Have you considered that without justification we don’t have the Reformation?

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  97. Amen, Ginger.

    And Calvin writes in “The Necessity of Reforming the Church”:

    “In one word, as we said of man, so we may say of works: they are justified not by their own desert, but by the merits of Christ alone; the faults by which they would otherwise displease being covered by the sacrifice of Christ. This consideration is of very great practical importance, both in retaining men in the fear of God, that they may not arrogate to their works that which proceeds from his fatherly kindness; and also in inspiring them with the best consolation, and so preventing them from giving way to despondency, when they reflect on the imperfection or impurity of their works, by reminding them that God, of his paternal indulgence, is pleased to pardon it.”

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  98. Jeff,

    What I hear you saying is that union describes our effectual calling after the fact. My contention is that although it is through the direct act that this union is realized, this is different from saying that union is the focus of the direct act. Would you also agree with that way of saying it?

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  99. Hart: But since one version of union (federal) is a forensic concept, then you are saying that the forensic changes our nature. Which kind of union are you talking about? And is it really union that changes us, or the Spirit?

    mark mc: I still like those last two questions.Not all “unionists” are saying the same thing. Most of them are saying that the “by faith” precedes the justification of the ungodly. This means that God’s imputation of righteousness is conditioned on the work of the Holy Spirit giving faith to the elect.
    But if the work of the Holy Spirit changes us is a result of “legal union”, then it’s God’s imputation of righteousness which changes our status and then that change of status causes the work of the Spirit changing us. We have “life because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10).

    Even when “unionists” agree that union has a forensic aspect, Christ’s death for the elect is NOT what they talk about when they get to what they want to talk about. When they say “union”, they don’t mean being placed by God into the forensic death (we died). They mean either infused habits or indwelling or faith or all three.

    But it is not a confusion of justification with regeneration to say that justification causes regeneration. To talk about cause, you need the distinction between the two.

    And we all talk about cause. Most say union causes justification, and this means union is not justification, but something else, like faith, which Luther identified with the indwelling Christ.. Some few of us say that “in Christ” means first of all “legal union” and that this causes faith.

    This means that “legal union” is not faith, but through faith. Of course Arminians think that faith itself IS THE righteousness. They think God imputes faith.

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  100. “No sin can be crucified either in heart or life, unless it be first pardoned in conscience… If sin be not mortified in its guilt, it cannot be subdued in its power.”

    William Romaine
    The Life, Walk and Triumph of Faith, James Clarke and Co. Ltd., 1793.

    mark mc: But of course it is not our conscience that pardons or justifies. It is not our mortification which removes guilt, but God’s non-imputation of guilt and imputation of righteousness which justifies the ungodly. Sin shall have no dominion over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

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  101. Darryl,

    I did not see your response to my earlier post concerning your comment that that our mortification to sin is categorically different from Christ’s death and descent into hell. Perhaps you missed it or thought that it was so far off the mark that you did not think it worth responding to. Either way, I would like to re-emphasize one of the points in my post, which seems to be the source of much confusion in this dialogue. The point I made was that union with Christ, according to Scripture does not restore or destroy our original nature, but rather gives us a new nature. Faith, effectual calling, regeneration, etc. are the inward reception, or resting in Christ by each individual (in time and space) of the union with Christ that we have (eternally) from God.

    To clarify, until the death of Christ, humanity only had the nature of Adam, which could not possibly live unto God/eternal life. This is what Paul means in Rom 8:3 when he said that the law is good, but because of the flesh, i.e., the Adam nature, it was necessary for God to condemn sin in the flesh of His own Son. So, our mortification to sin is just the opposite of death – it is life or more accurately the life of Christ as Paul says in Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith. Union with Christ then is union with Him in death as a member of humanity (reconciliation), and union with Him in life as an individual saved by faith.

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  102. Brian, yes, I think I would. My usual way of saying it is that union is not a “thing”, but a mechanism — the means by which the benefits of Christ are given to us.

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  103. DGH: Jeff, Calvin didn’t answer the charge of where good works come from

    Well, he thought he did. I think he did also, so perhaps we’ll have to agree to disagree.

    So let’s just note ‘for the record’ that Calvin (1) does provide a response to the charge of antinomianism, (2) that response is grounded in union theology, and (3) you and I disagree on its adequacy.

    DGH: You seem so eager to maximize union that you fail to notice that in the Reformation justification — the reality described by it — was the basis for assurance, not union. And this is what I find puzzling. You make it seem like the material principle of the Reformation needs the help of union, and you don’t seem to recognize the discredit that formulation pays to Protestantism. Have you considered that without justification we don’t have the Reformation?

    Hm. Am I really that eager to maximize union? I’m not writing, for example, weekly blogposts about union (“There’s Waldo Thursdays”?). You’re fond of declaring the doctrine of union to be confusing, and questioning its value (“why can’t we just dispense with union and speak of effectual calling”). I can’t think of any comparably strong or controversial stances that I’ve taken.

    Now, along our long way, there have been a couple of theses that have deserved yellow cards. These were:

    * “justification causes sanctification”, and
    * “justification is the ground of our union with Christ.”

    To my mind, WSC 30 clearly and decisively rules these out of court. That is the burden of my song.

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  104. Mark McC: Even when “unionists” agree that union has a forensic aspect, Christ’s death for the elect is NOT what they talk about when they get to what they want to talk about. When they say “union”, they don’t mean being placed by God into the forensic death (we died). They mean either infused habits or indwelling or faith or all three.

    Which “unionists” say this? I share your alarm at such a notion.

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  105. Don, do you really mean to say that only until the death of Christ everyone had the nature of Adam? What about David, a man after the Lord’s heart? What about the OT saints?

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  106. Jeff, but I’m united to Christ, so why don’t you answer the question? Unionists and JP’s both wind up saying the same thing — works inevitably follow from [insert your doctrine here]. Union doesn’t solve any more problems than justification does, except that when it comes to Christ’s righteousness, union needs justification for Christ’s righteousness to be in play.

    This is the burden of my song — union is not as big a deal as you think. It’s a deal. It’s not the center of Reformed soteriology. It wasn’t historically. And it is still not experientially. Hence all the Protestant songs about the vicarious sacrifice, blood, and the cross.

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  107. 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…” p110, Faith-Sight

    Gaffin defines “union” as power over against sin despite our “incomplete progress, flawed by our continued sinning”.

    The other Mark defines “union” as basically “effectual calling”.

    Jeff explains that “union” is “the way we talk about what’s in us”.

    At the end of the day, I don’t see “unionists” sticking with any idea of union by election or of forensic union (placed by God the Father into Christ’s death). They may start there, but they end with the idea that we can’t be justified until after we “possess Christ”. They won’t say that Christ belongs to us because of legal imputation. They say that legal imputation happens because Christ belongs to us.

    If we are not given the Spirit because of Christ’s righteousness, then we must be justified because the Spirit in us has given us faith. And/or because of “sacramental union” through faith by means of the union between sign and that which is signified.

    I disagree. Christ baptizes into/with the Spirit. The Spirit does not baptize into Christ.

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  108. Clair Davis, Pattern of Sound Doctrine, p278—“What should the sinner do? Should he come in faith to Christ? Or is it better to tell him to pray for a new heart? What does faith look like, if it’s placed after regeneration but before justification? As far as justification is concerned, faith is passive and extraspective, not looking to itself but only to Jesus Christ. But from the direction of regeneration, faith is lively and transformed. Can faith be both passive and lively? Not if ordinary definitions are used. Properly understood, faith expresses such a radical heart transformation that it no longer looks to itself at all, but only and always to Christ”

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  109. Mark McC: Jeff explains that “union” is “the way we talk about what’s in us”.

    No, I wasn’t offering a definition of union there. I was pointing out to DGH that the way we talk about doctrines suggests to us the way in which we think about what’s going on internally. “Way we talk” was the subject of that sentence, not the definition of union.

    I would define union with Christ in this way: by faith, we are (1) brought under His headship, so that our sin is reckoned to Him and His righteousness to us; and (2) indwellt with His Spirit, so that we can say together with Paul that Christ is “in us.”

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  110. Mark McC: They may start there, but they end with the idea that we can’t be justified until after we “possess Christ”. They won’t say that Christ belongs to us because of legal imputation. They say that legal imputation happens because Christ belongs to us.

    What then do you make of Calvin’s Institutes 3.16? Or 3.1.1? Or 3.3?

    What I sense is that you are thinking of “Christ belonging to us” as some kind of code for “Christ transforms us.” And if that were the case, then I would take your side. We are not, ever, justified because of a transformation wrought in us.

    But “Christ belonging to us” doesn’t mean that, at least not in historic Reformed theology.

    When Calvin speaks of “possessing Christ”, he makes clear that there are two distinct benefits in view:

    (1) Being justified because we possess Christ’s righteousness as a legal verdict.
    (2) Being regenerated because the Spirit has changed our hearts.

    These two are, according to Calvin, entirely distinct yet inseparable (Inst 3.3); the one always comes with the other.

    So it is in fact correct that we cannot be justified until we possess Christ. And possessing Christ, in the context of justification, means imputation: that His righteousness is made ours.

    Before there was ever Gaffin, the doctrine of union with Christ was a well-trodden, robust part of soteriology. We need to go ad fontes in our discussions of union and not simply react against present-day theorists.

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  111. DGH: Jeff, but I’m united to Christ, so why don’t you answer the question? Unionists and JP’s both wind up saying the same thing — works inevitably follow from [insert your doctrine here]. Union doesn’t solve any more problems than justification does, except that when it comes to Christ’s righteousness, union needs justification for Christ’s righteousness to be in play.

    I’m sorry, I’m lost as to which question you mean. I thought I’d answered the questions you posed.

    It doesn’t particularly disturb me if unionists and JPs say the same things. In fact, as I’ve pointed out before, some of your JP colleagues like Horton and even Clark say some of the same things about union that I’ve been saying.

    This is a good thing, not a bad thing.

    DGH: This is the burden of my song — union is not as big a deal as you think. It’s a deal. It’s not the center of Reformed soteriology. It wasn’t historically. And it is still not experientially. Hence all the Protestant songs about the vicarious sacrifice, blood, and the cross.

    The notion of finding a “center” of Reformed theology is precisely what Muller is criticizing in the quote above. It’s a futile effort, like trying to decide who would win a Superman-Batman smackdown.

    Is union the center? Well, all of the benefits of Christ are applied to us by uniting us to Christ.
    Is justification the center? Well, justification is the material principle of the Reformation and the focus of much of its energies.

    There is no answer to the question “which is the the true center?”

    My fear, Darryl, is that your quest to make justification The True Center of Reformed thought is leading you into needless perplexities about the doctrine of union.

    You say that union is not a big deal, and in one sense that may be true. It is also true that union is not hard. Calvin didn’t particularly feel the need to define it, taking it as a self-evident term. The creeds and catechisms, which attach great importance to the sacraments as expressions of our union with Christ, likewise treat “union” as a self-evident term.

    Maybe you’re looking for some big deal. Instead, try this: What of Christ’s belongs to me as a result of effectual calling? That’s the union we have with Him.

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  112. Jeff, this will seem snotty, I know, but which variety of union are you talking about with this definition? Mystical? And where would you ever find this statement in one of the Reformed confessions? BTW, it doesn’t quote from Calvin, as you are wont.

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  113. Jeff, another nit-picked (just trying to keep the unionists on their toes): so which is it, does Christ belong to us or do we belong to Christ? Monergism would suggest that you would want to make God the owner of his people, not the other way around. You really wouldn’t want to say, would you, that “Christ belongs to me” (no matter how much it is about me)?

    Also, since justification comes by faith, and faith is impossible without regeneration (or effectual calling), folks who prioritize justification are hardly isolating it as a bare abstraction. The point of justification’s priority is all about the perfect righteousness of Christ which we have entirely apart from works, in contrast to the imperfection of sanctification in this life or the filthy rags of the works we sometimes associate with sanctification. Justification reminds us that our confidence is solely in Christ. If we looked to ourselves, even our sanctified selves, we would be tossed to and fro.

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  114. Jeff, you still don’t get the point of the question. Most of the momentum for union in the last 20 years has been to show 1) that justification isn’t a legal fiction, that we have a real, personal righteousness; and 2) that you can’t charge Reformed Protestants (though you can Lutherans) with antinomianism). But if union winds up not satisfying the charge of antinomianism, suddenly the wind has gone out of the sail.

    And by the way, in case you didn’t notice, the description of union’s value and antinominian-answering capacities, has gone hand in hand (at least implicitly, though I’ve heard seminarians say some surprising things) with a contrast that leaves union as a superior doctrine to justification because union does so much more, describes so much more, than justification. That has led some unionists to flirt with the New Perspective on Paul and its critique of the Reformation. Those have not been propitious developments.

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  115. Darryl

    I have taken time to read only a few of the earlier comments so what I am about to say may well have been said: the reason why we must locate our many gospel blessings in our union with Christ is because that is precisely where Scripture repeatedly locates them.

    That we fail to realise the life of this union as we ought is because we fail to live by faith as we ought. The communion of the union is broken. It is not a failure of memory but a failure of faith, or if you like ‘faith-memory’. I have lost sight of all that I have become in Christ and so fall into fleshly ways.

    Why is this union so inspiring and uplifting? Because it tells me that I can really overcome indwelling sin and begin to be like my saviour. I do not lie down to sin and accept its tyranny, rather I recognise that by the indwelling Christ and through the indwelling Spirit the new life and nature I have can flourish and grow; I can live like Christ as by faith I live in Christ. Not only does sin no longer condemn me but it no longer controls me – and here is a case where two is better than one.

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  116. If I had blog-jurisdiction I would give a “ding ding ding!” to the following:

    “This is the burden of my song — union is not as big a deal as you think. It’s a deal. It’s not the center of Reformed soteriology. It wasn’t historically. And it is still not experientially. Hence all the Protestant songs about the vicarious sacrifice, blood, and the cross.”

    Since this is really what this whole conversation is about, I’d like to hear the union proponents tell us how prominent it ought to be in the life of the church. And, if you think it ought to be more central, that’s a change. What would be a reasonable expectation of the result of that change?

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  117. Darryl said: “that you can’t charge Reformed Protestants (though you can Lutherans) with antinomianism). But if union winds up not satisfying the charge of antinomianism, suddenly the wind has gone out of the sail.”

    I’m sure you can accuse some Lutherans of antinomianism but not all:

    http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/VII/7-3.htm

    Thanks to Eminem, the white rapper, for that post (I’m sorry that’s MM not Eminem)

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  118. John, I’ll see your inspiring and raise an uplifting:

    We believe that our blessedness lies in the forgiveness of our sins because of Jesus Christ, and that in it our righteousness before God is contained, as David and Paul teach us when they declare that man blessed to whom God grants righteousness apart from works. And the same apostle says that we are justified “freely” or “by grace” through redemption in Jesus Christ.^55 And therefore we cling to this foundation, which is firm forever, giving all glory to God, humbling ourselves, and recognizing ourselves as we are; not claiming a thing for ourselves or our merits and leaning and resting on the sole obedience of Christ crucified, which is ours when we believe in him. That is enough to cover all our sins and to make us confident, freeing the conscience from the fear, dread, and terror of God’s approach, without doing what our first father, Adam, did, who trembled as he tried to cover himself with fig leaves. In fact, if we had to appear before God relying– no matter how little– on ourselves or some other creature, then, alas, we would be swallowed up. (Belgic Confession, Art. 23 on the Justification of Sinners)

    How are thou righteous before God? Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart. (Heidelberg Catechism 60)

    Are you suggesting that union provides more comfort than what comes with the righteousness of Christ received by faith alone?

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  119. I’m not suggesting that at all- I find much more comfort in the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith alone. I was just commenting on your accusation of Lutherans being antinomian.

    I know I still have a tendency to have a hangover from my charismatic and evangelical days in some of my blog posts but what’s up with the inspiring and raise you an uplifting? I would much rather get a correction on some of my thinking than try to figure out what you meant by that. I realize that we live in differing faith traditions and Luther has been appealed to in union debates on occasion (especially by charismatics who adhere to the Swedish (or is it Finnish) reading of Luther) but I deeply respect how you and the teachers at Westminster Seminary California uphold the doctrine of justification by faith alone through grace alone on the account of Christ alone. All for the glory of God alone. And I would be all ears if you corrected me.

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  120. DGH: Are you suggesting that union provides more comfort than what comes with the righteousness of Christ received by faith alone?

    Are you suggesting that food provides more nourishment than what comes with meat and vegetables received by chewing alone?

    The question makes no sense. Union provides the comfort of justification because our union consists of His federal headship over us and His indwelling in us.

    We receive one and the same comfort from union and justification.

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  121. M.Mann, not the climate scientist or film producer: Since this is really what this whole conversation is about, I’d like to hear the union proponents tell us how prominent it ought to be in the life of the church.

    In one sense, it need not be prominent at all. When I teach communicants’ class, union is not very prominent, but justification is.

    If all that we’re talking about is prominence, then I say, “justification should be prominent.”

    If what we’re talking about is the ordo salutis, then I say, “union is the way in which the benefits of Christ are applied to us.”

    I think JPs tend to get those two ideas confused.

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  122. I just realized that the post you made to John may have been directed at John T, not myself. If that is the case just disregard my comment. Although you do find Luther talking a lot about union with Christ that some Finnish charismatic theologians picked up on. I think they cherry pick Luther though and do not consider how his mature thought developed in regards to sin,repentance, the law, justification by faith alone and the sacraments. I am surprised no one has mentioned that in these debates. The details of trying to understand revelation can get complex at times. And you have many voices trying to steer you in differing directions. That is probably why Luther and Calvin were so vehement about trying to get proper training and education for those who were called to be Pastors of churches.

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  123. Thanks for the clarification, Jeff.

    Now perhaps I should explain my angle. We all have different interests depending upon our stations in life, our offices, our academic work, etc. My chief concern is the impact on the church, and I believe that shifting doctrinal emphases produce change in the church. That may be obvious, but sometimes it’s helpful to state the obvious. For example, predestination is important, but when it is disproportionately taught, it brings about an unhealthy change.

    And, of course, there are forces behind the scenes that animate this debate. We once had a church visitor who was quite inflamed over this issue as it seemed to have had a significant role in some turmoil within his congregation from another part of the country. At least it did in his mind. I am not trying to ignite an ugly side of this debate but, as I say, it gets my attention when it walks through the door of my church.

    Michael Mann
    Director. Climatologist. Rapper.

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  124. Jeff quotes Mark Mc: They may start there, but they end with the idea that we can’t be justified until after we “possess Christ”. They won’t say that Christ belongs to us because of legal imputation. They say that legal imputation happens because Christ belongs to us.

    Jeff asks: What then do you make of Calvin’s Institutes 3.16? Or 3.1.1? Or 3.3?

    Mark Mc answers: I agree with Bruce McCormack that Torrance is wrong to begin there to talk about what Calvin says about justification. I agree with McCormack that what Calvin says about regeneration is sometimes inconsistent with what Calvin says about forensic imputation. But even more to the point, I do agree with Jeff that Gaffin is not the one who began to put regeneration before justification. Calvin did that, and I agree with McCormack that the reason Calvin probably did that was his view of “eucharistic feeding”. I have addressed some of the details in previous posts, not that Jeff should have read them. (Notice the one in which I quote from Calvin’s book 3)

    Jeff: What I sense is that you are thinking of “Christ belonging to us” as some kind of code for “Christ transforms us.” And if that were the case, then I would take your side. We are not, ever, justified because of a transformation wrought in us.

    mark: No, I understand that neither you nor Gaffin (nor Calvin) is wanting to confuse regeneration with justification. But you want to put regeneration and faith before justification, and the way you tend to say that is to say that “union” causes justification. You want to say that Christ belongs to us because of faith.

    The problem is that this faith which “unites” us to Christ is a result of some transformation. Some kind of faith, in your view, must precede justification. Perhaps you think the only alternative to that is to teach some kind of eternal justification. But Horton would disagree. The imputation causes immediate hearing (faith). But the imputation is not the hearing. The righteousness imputed is not the new birth which results from the imputation.

    Jeff explains: When Calvin speaks of “possessing Christ”, he makes clear that there are two distinct benefits in view:
    (1) Being justified because we possess Christ’s righteousness as a legal verdict.
    (2) Being regenerated because the Spirit has changed our hearts.

    Mark: This is not a definition of either “union” or of “possessing Christ”. You say that justification and regeneration are benefits of “union”. But what is “belonging to Christ”? Not what are the the benefits of belonging to Christ.

    Jeff: So it is in fact correct that we cannot be justified until we possess Christ. And possessing Christ, in the context of justification, means imputation: that His righteousness is made ours.

    mark: I think I agree with the second sentence. But if that sentence means what I think it means, then it means that possessing Christ IS justification. The legal union is the justification of the ungodly, and that change in “legal status” results in time in the application of all the other blessings of salvation.

    I certainly would be interested in what you think of the priority of “legal union”. Perhaps some of the confusion here results from a distinction between three words: the righteousness, the imputation, and the justification. If you are saying that Christ must obtain a righteousness for there to be something to impute, I agree. If you are saying that the legal transfer of the righteousness is something other (and at different times) than Christ’s bringing in the righteousness, again I agree. If you are saying that the declaration that an elect person is “justified” is something other the legal transfer of Christ’s merits, once again I agree. But I think you are saying that something which is not legal must take place in us before the legal status belongs to us.

    I hope that is not putting words in your mouth. I would rather not speculate about what “union” means to a person.

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  125. John Thomsom wrote: The reason why we must locate our many gospel blessings in our union with Christ is because that is precisely where Scripture repeatedly locates them.”

    mark: Well, let’s look at one such text. II Cor 5:21 made him to be sin who knew no sin, that we would be made (become) the righteousness of God IN HIM.

    Agreed, there is no justification apart from the “in Him”. And there was no election apart from the “in Him”. So the question becomes what does the “in Him” mean? Well, look at what Thomson then writes: ” Why is this union so inspiring and uplifting? Because it tells me that I can really overcome indwelling sin and begin to be like my saviour.”

    This is not exactly a definition of “union”, but it suggest one. “Union” according to this thinking is not election. “Union” is not justification. “Union” is that which tells us that we can “really overcome sin”. But will this definition of “union” work for II Cor 5:21 which is in context about the imputation of sin and the non-imputation of sin? When the text says that we “become the righteousness of God in Christ”, what does the “in Christ” mean? And when we learn from Ephesians 1, that election is in Christ, what does the “in Christ” mean there? Does it mean “that which tells me that I can overcome indwelling sin”?

    It seems to me that Thomson is assuming a definition of union, instead of arguing from the “in Christ” texts. Or is “union” only about the “Christ in us” texts?

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  126. Darryl

    As Jeff is saying, we know Christ as our righteousness by union. But Christ is more than our righteousness, more than our justification; he is our life. Indeed he is our glorification. But again Darryl, your argument is not with me but with Scripture. I have died with Christ, risen with Christ, am seated with Christ in heavenly places, I share not only in his life but in his reign, indeed, I ‘reign in life’ in union with him. Union is much more than justification; it is the whole salvation package.

    But don’t look to the confessions – they may mislead you. Look to Scripture it never does and has the advantage of being the Word of God.

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  127. John Thomson,

    Your post exhibits exactly why I find the emphasis on union troubling rather than uplifting. What you are saying comes down to this:

    – The diagnosis for why we do not live as we should in union is because we don’t have faith like we ought. (This is true.)

    – Therefore, we ought to have more faith. (This is also true.)

    The problem is not that these statements are untrue, but that, categorically, theologically, these are “law.” There is not an ounce of gospel in what you said. What inspires/uplifts the believer to strive to obey the law–including the law’s exhortation that we have more faith, improve upon our life in union with Christ, etc.–is the gospel. Must we have more faith? Yes. How will we grow to have more faith? By being told gospel, not by being told law-without-gospel.

    The union folks talk as if when they tell you what the law says (since the law tells you that you should have more faith than you do), that what they’re actually telling you is the gospel. They’re not. Keep telling me that since I’m united to Christ that I can overcome indwelling sin, and you’ll keep driving me to ask “How that can be?”, since my life does not give much manifest evidence that this is true. Instead, you drive me to a reflex act of faith, calling it a direct act of faith, and drive me to introspection, which is deadly before or apart from driving me to Christ.

    I come from a tradition where they love to talk like this. In the indwelling Christ and in the indwelling Holy Spirit, they would say, you have everything you need to overcome indwelling sin. They’re called “Wesleyans.”

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  128. Mark

    No indeed, union is first and foremost for Paul at least ‘Us in Christ’. Our salvation from beginning to end is through Union with Christ. It is a union conceived in eternity and realised in history. I simply focussed on one aspect – the ability to overcome indwelling sin – because that is an area Darryl referred to in his post.

    Mark, it seems you and others wish to limit the blessings of ‘in Christ’ to justification. Why? Great as justification is it is only one of the things that God has conceived to lavish upon us ‘in Christ’. Don’t you want to rejoice in the others? Don’t you wish to be filled with all the fulness of Christ?

    But union (Us in Christ) results in communion (Us in Christ and Christ in Us). It is a fellowship of life and life is much more than forgiveness of sins (or if you will imputed righteousness). In the language of Eph 1, in him we not only have forgiveness of sins, we have an inheritance and it involves sealed to us presently by the Spirit.

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  129. John and Jeff, but union relies on justification because union alone does not focus on the imputed righteousness of Christ. I don’t know if you see this, but you are both objecting to the confessional declarations of the Reformation which went out of their way to be clear about justification — about the perfect righteousness received from Christ by faith alone. You both seem to be suggesting that justification is inadequate to comfort a stricken conscience. And a believer would have a stricken conscience who looked to the imperfection that haunts sanctification, which is imperfect in this life and produces good works that are filthy rags. For union to reassure, it needs to rely upon the clarity of the doctrine of justification. Which is why a steady diet of preaching union will not yield the comfort that comes from clearly expounding the doctrine of justification.

    Jeff, you’re right, that question makes no sense. I don’t understand it. But you seem to be saying that justification needs union to provide comfort. Well, say hello to the sixteenth century confessions. Not even your beloved union-loving Calvin devoted any question to union (other than the union of Christ’s two natures or the union of believers with Christ in the Supper) in his catechism. For some reason, he thought that believers needed to know justification and did not need to know about union when explaining the faith.

    John, the confessions don’t mislead. They accurately reflect the teaching of Scripture. I suggest you pay more attention to them. You might even learn a thing or two about the church and the danger of lone rangers interpreting the Bible by their own lights.

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  130. Jeff, better to say that effectual calling is the way that subscribers to the WCF talk about the application of the benefits of Christ applied to us. I don’t know how you can miss eff. calling, unless you’re only looking through the lens of union and see it everywhere. Where’s Waldo? It’s everywhere, like Visa, you want it to be.

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  131. John T.,

    As the resident Anabaptist who pops in once in awhile at Old life you might want to consider that the idea of not looking to the confessions but to scripture alone can be regarded as biblicism for some very good reasons. I would suggest reading Scott Clarks diatribe about that on pages 19-25 of his book Recovering the Reformed Confession. And if you want to really try to understand confessionalism you might want to read the whole book. Although some Reformed philosopher and logician types may try to steer you in a different direction. Life can get so complicated at times- especially when trying to understand the most important things about it. Peace out John T.

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  132. I very much appreciate Brian’s post because it shows that this is NOT “merely” an abstract discussion about the order of salvation for individuals. Brian wrote:”The union folks talk as if when they tell you what the law says (since the law tells you that you should have more faith than you do), that what they’re actually telling you is the gospel. They’re not. Keep telling me that since I’m united to Christ that I can overcome indwelling sin, and you’ll keep driving me to ask “How that can be?”, since my life does not give much manifest evidence that this is true. Instead, you drive me to a reflex act of faith, calling it a direct act of faith, and drive me to introspection, which is deadly before or apart from driving me to Christ.”

    After all has been said, what has been done? What the Spirit does in us cannot satisfy God’s law. What has been done that has satisfied God’s law for the elect is Christ’s death for the elect, and it is the elect’s legal union with that death which keeps them off probation. Think of Romans 5:21: “as sin reigned in death, grace also reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

    What is this righteousness by which the justified elect reign? It is NOT the Spirit “through Christ in us” giving us the power to do the law. The righteousness by which the justified elect reign is the “one man’s obedience” (Romans 5:19). Those who receive by imputation the reconciliation (5:11) and the “free gift of righteousness” (5:17) are legally constituted righteous by the one man’s righteousness.

    I have my righteousness not in an example, not in a new power or a new potential. I have my righteousness in the One who is not only my representative but also my substitute, in the One who died for me a death which God counts as my death. The anabaptists and Wesley and Baxter were very anxious about the “antinomian consequences” of that. They thought it “cut the nerve” of the motive for morality. Thus they conditioned the blessings of salvation on what they thanked their god for doing in the sinner.

    As a person who remains both a pacifist (and a credo-baptist), my joy and hope is not that God now makes me love my enemies. After all, after all has been said, nothing has been done. (Some would even say that’s what pacifism is: doing nothing!)

    Even when it comes to “reflex faith”, I make my calling and election sure by looking again to Christ crucified outside me as He is revealed in the “gospel, which is the power of salvation”. In this gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. And that righteousness is “in Christ” because it is the obedience (even unto death) done by the One Man.

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  133. Michael Mann
    Director. Climatologist. Rapper.

    So MM are we ever going to get to know who that masked man really is? Do you have a Tonto somewhere too who covers for you?

    Actually I was glad you acknowledged my existence again. I thought I might have gotten on your bad side when I went off on my brother like I did awhile back. I actually had a decent talk with him at my 2nd sons wedding in Indianapolis a couple weeks ago. It took us a couple drinks to get there but some fences are beginning to be mended.

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  134. Michael M (c.d.r.): Well put.

    Brian: Read older folk on union. I particularly like A.A. Hodge, who makes it rather clear and keeps a forensic focus.

    Mark Mc: There’s a lot to chew on your post. I want to focus on this:

    But you want to put regeneration and faith before justification, and the way you tend to say that is to say that “union” causes justification. You want to say that Christ belongs to us because of faith.

    The problem is that this faith which “unites” us to Christ is a result of some transformation. Some kind of faith, in your view, must precede justification. Perhaps you think the only alternative to that is to teach some kind of eternal justification. But Horton would disagree. The imputation causes immediate hearing (faith).

    I would definitely want to put faith before justification; but not regeneration (as Calvin is using the term, not as the later divines did). The two benefits of justification and regeneration, in Calvin’s scheme, depend upon faith.

    If I’m hearing you, you seem to be saying that imputation causes faith. Two questions immediately spring to mind.

    (1) How do you square that with WCoF 14.1 and 11.1-2?
    (2) Where does Horton teach this?

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  136. Jeff,

    I’ll check it out. I’m not at all opposed to the doctrine of union. I just want to make sure it is set in its proper place–i.e., nuanced by a system, which includes a vast network of beliefs in coherent relation, rather than slogans taken in isolation from which sweeping declarations are sloppily concluded.

    It still seems to me that union is a more fruitful object of inquiry for the reflex act of faith than it is for the direct act of faith. It is more helpful for deducing the imperatival consequences of union than it is for explaining the indicatives. The reason I think this is because every attempt I hear at fleshing out the indicatives seems to obfuscate what is otherwise perfectly clear by the typical Reformed account of the ordo salutis.

    Since you addressed the question of faith and its relation to justification, it’s interesting that Bavinck and Berkhof both give an answer to this question that might confuse the unionsts. Bavinck and Berkhof both say that there are two senses of the relationship between faith and justification, and that both are true, as each is taken in its own proper sense. They both agree that it is true that faith precedes justification in a certain sense, while there is another sense in which justification precedes faith. I promise, it’s true. Look up “active justification” and/or “passive justification in the index of either. What I hear the unionists doing too often is denying one of those two, while what I hear Horton doing, when I read him carefully, is maintaining both.

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  137. DGH: I don’t know if you see this, but you are both objecting to the confessional declarations of the Reformation which went out of their way to be clear about justification — about the perfect righteousness received from Christ by faith alone.

    Not at all.

    Dwell on this for a bit. In Heidelberg Q1, why is union our “only hope”? Ursinus says that my only hope is that I belong to Christ. Is he therefore setting aside one’s hope in one’s justification? Is Ursinus “objecting to confessional declarations” about justification? If belonging to Christ is my only hope, then is justification no hope at all, according to Ursinus.

    You’ve driven a wedge between union and justification that ought not be driven. For Ursinus, the two go together.

    —

    The following is provocative, but is meant in charity.

    Suppose a man sees a fly on his wife’s forehead. Should he swat it? He might get the fly; but he will definitely hit the wife.

    And so it is with the current push for the priority of justification. You see a danger in modern unionists’ emphasis on union. Possibly there is a danger. Too much preaching of union might very well obscure the fact that we are justified in Christ freely, by faith. A distorted view of union may very well communicate the idea that we are justified by some kind of infused righteousness. If those things occur, then they are wrong. Those ideas are theological flies to be swatted.

    But sitting behind the modern unionists is an entire history of Reformed “union theology.” The doctrine of union didn’t spring full-grown from Gaffin’s forehead, but it developed … as I’ve documented across this blog … from Calvin and on up through the Reformers and beyond.

    Your push for “justification priority” is aimed at the fly of the teachings of modern unionists. But its effect is to cast disparagement on the entire doctrine of union: You profess it to be confusing and to be superfluous in light of effectual calling; you label anyone who defends WSC 30 a “unionist” and tell them that they deny the Reformed confessions; your “Where’s Waldo?” posts are designed to mock those who see union in phrases that have historically been understood as union language (‘in Christ’, ‘belonging to Christ’).

    But most importantly, you set up a competition between union and justification so that one must decrease in order for the other to increase.

    This is not healthy, brother. You’re hitting the wife when you ought to be isolating the fly from the wife.

    The important question, assuming that Gaffin and co. are wrong, is this: “How is the modern version of union *different from* the historic Reformed doctrine of union?”

    Get the fly off the wife first, then swat away.

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  138. Yeazel: “Actually I was glad you acknowledged my existence again. I thought I might have gotten on your bad side when I went off on my brother like I did awhile back. I actually had a decent talk with him at my 2nd sons wedding in Indianapolis a couple weeks ago. It took us a couple drinks to get there but some fences are beginning to be mended.”

    Families are uniquely rewarding and uniquely vexing – I wouldn’t hold that against you. And I wouldn’t easily turn on someone like you who has, with such steadfastness, insulted me in such an entertaining fashion.

    But it feels like we are having a really loud side-conversation while the Westminster divines are trying to draft the confession, so I’ll catch up with you in another thread.

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  140. Mark

    Humanity became sinners in Adam. Adam’s sin brought condemnation and death to the race. Yet all who followed Adam, in union with him, sinned too. They produced the fruit of the nature they inherited. One may also say they lived consistent with the humanity to which they were united; flesh produced flesh.

    The parallel stands in Christ. We receive our justification unto life in him. He is our righteousness. Yet we too produce the fruit of a nature (a life) we receive in him. We live consistently with the humanity to which we are united; Spirit produces Spirit.

    This is not subtraction but addition.

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  141. Brian

    Is not Berkof’s and Bavinck’s conundrum precisely why the doctrine of union is so necessary? A case can be made for regeneration preceding justification and equally for justification preceding regeneration. If one gets caught up in a nitpicking ordo then contradiction results. Union follows Scripture and prevents us going beyond Scripture. It is possible to ‘nuance’ beyond what is revealed.

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  142. Brian

    I don’t accept the law/gospel divide you do. I understand it simply in redemptive-historical terms. Thus faith/repentance/good works are obligations associated with gospel (and enabled by gospel). They are the fruit not of law but of a new nature empowered by the Spirit. I don’t believe the law (OC) ever says ‘you should have more faith’; the law is not of faith. I strive not to obey the law but to obey the gospel. These very strivings are the fruit of a renewed nature empowered by the Spirit. They are not strivings to achieve life (the law) but the strivings of life (gospel).

    If these strivings lead us to introspection then we have indeed put ourselves under law. But they ought not. If we live in gospel grace with all its acceptance then it is within this grace that we strive with all the energy of God who mightily works within us. It is not a striving to keep the law but a striving to know Christ, the fellowship of his sufferings and the power of his resurrection that one day I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.

    Phil 3:12-16 (ESV)
    Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

    This is Christian ‘living’. It is an awesome thing but a glorious thing.

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  143. Jeff, the modern version is different from the historic because the modern stumbles over saying that justification is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. In fact, the modern version has problems saying as many good things about justification as about union. And the historic version was clear. The modern version — despite acknowledging at least three different senses of union — never speaks of union with those distinctions in mind. Surely the federal or decretal senses of union do not function in the same way as the mystical. But have you once here, Jeff, modified the word “union” when you speak about it?

    BTW, I didn’t start the competition between union and justification, or between Reformed and Lutherans on the doctrine of salvation. Someone else spotted a fly on the Lutheran wife’s face.

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  144. DGH: But have you once here, Jeff, modified the word “union” when you speak about it?

    Yes, frequently. The distinction between forensic and mystical aspects of union is one that I have appealed to regularly. Twice in previous comments in this thread in fact.

    In fact, I have been recommending Hodge because he clearly distinguishes between forensic and mystical aspects of union.

    Also, I have no trouble with saying good things about justification, or that the doctrine of justification is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. And I very much — very much — appreciate the fact that you assert the importance of justification as the anchor of the church.

    So why are we fighting?

    DGH: BTW, I didn’t start the competition between union and justification

    I believe that. But why then are you playing on “their” terms? If the error is to raise up union and diminish justification, then the truth is not to raise up justification and diminish union, but rather to point out that the two do not compete.

    DGH: And the historic version was clear.

    Good. So you agree, then, that the benefits of Christ are applied to us by uniting us to Christ, which is done in our effectual calling?

    And you agree, then, that Calvin (who does not distinguish between different types of union at all) was correct in saying that to be justified, we must first be united to Christ?

    If so, then I’m content.

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  145. Brian: “Bavinck and Berkhof both say that there are two senses of the relationship between faith and justification, and that both are true, as each is taken in its own proper sense. They both agree that it is true that faith precedes justification in a certain sense, while there is another sense in which justification precedes faith. I promise, it’s true. Look up “active justification” and/or “passive justification in the index of either. What I hear the unionists doing too often is denying one of those two, while what I hear Horton doing, when I read him carefully, is maintaining both.”

    I like this post. It not only makes me want to read the section in Bavinck but also makes we want to know more about Brian and where’s he at, since it sounds like we might be at the same place.

    I have already quoted Berkhof (outside us before inside us) and Horton (the verdict as performative word). At this point, I would like to quote a much more obscure source: Cunha on Gaffin, p82–“if the new birth casually precedes faith, which is the alone instrument of justification, doesn’t this mean that creative work of God’s Spirit within a man, regeneration, precedes a legal change in status, justification, in the application of redemption? Yes, it does….Whatever is made of the fact that the new birth precedes faith, the Biblical definition of faith must not be altered in order to accommodate a preconceived notion that the forensic act of justification cannot be preceded causally by the actual change produced within a man…To say, for example, that faith is merely the awareness of justification that has occurred prior to faith is to define faith in a way that is foreign to Scripture.”

    I quote Cunha not simply to agree, but to display the “tension” that Brian is pointing to. I don’t like tension and complexity, but that will not make it go away. That’s why we need to make some distinctions (temporal order, logical order, legal basis etc) and give definitions. When Horton suggests that the legal declaration of God causes the renewal, that is not a confusion of justification and renewal. Because the justification is not merely an epistemological declaration to our conscience (as Barth or “eternal justification” would have it), but the objective word of God. As many as believe this gospel have been adopted by God as His children.

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  146. Thomson writes: He is our righteousness. Yet we too produce the fruit of a nature (a life) we receive in him. We live consistently with the humanity to which we are united; Spirit produces Spirit.
    This is not subtraction but addition.

    mark mc: I don’t like the “yet”. Addition is subtraction. If the righteousness Christ obtained needs to be supplemented by the work of the Spirit in us producing added righteousness, then our justification is not in Christ’s death and resurrection alone. The confession says “not for anything done in us”.

    I addressed two texts that talk about the righteousness. Romans 5:21 does not tell us that we reign in life by the righteousness produced (additionally) in us by the Spirit. We reign in the righteousness which is that of the one man’s obedience. II Cor 5:21 does not tell us that we become the righteousness of God IN HIM by means of a righteousness produced in us. The parallel is the legal imputation of the sins of the elect to Christ by which he was “made sin”.

    Addition can be subtraction, and not only in Galatians. When Gaffin teaches that Christ removes the law/gospel antithesis for those who are in Christ, that is a confusion of law and gospel. If by grace, not by works. If by works, not by grace. If by law, not by faith. If by the righteousness of Christ, not by our righteousness.

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  147. John,

    When Bavinck and Berkhof affirm these two different senses, I consider this a case of careful nuancing. It’s only contradiction if you can’t live with tension. But you’ve got to read it for yourself before you dismiss it.

    I’m happy to say that faith and repentance, as obligations, are “associated” with the gospel. These are especially appropriate in response to the gospel–faith as looking extraspecitvely to the mediator, and repentance as the first act of obedience flowing from faith. But strictly speaking, they are not required by the gospel itself. To say that they are puts you squarely in the neonomian camp. The Marrow Men do some fantastic work on just this question–whether faith and repentance are required by the law. Read the queries that were put to them on the occasion of the Marrow controversy. Again, read it before you write it off. In this case, a good dose of historical theology can set straight a lot of the fuzziness that comes with swallowing whole the “all-embracing” sorts of doctrinal assertions.

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  148. Brian and Mark,

    Those were some impressive posts- do you mind telling us your backrounds (where you went to school, what churches you belong to, if you are pastoring churches, what seminaries you went to, what theologians you draw from the most, etc.)

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  149. Bavinck 4.201:
    “Yet, although Calvin proved his independence also in the doctrine of justification, he did not solve all the problems that present themselves in the study of this article of faith. This applies especially to the relaationship of justification to election and satisfaction, on one hand, and to sanctification and glorification, on the other. If justification has a place somewhere between the two, there is always a reason to connect it more with the preceding or more with the following group of benefits, depending on the choice made, and justification itself acquires a different meaning. If one’s purpose is to maintain the objective forensic character of justification, it is natural to tie it closely with election and satisfaction. It then becomes the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which took place long before, in the gospel, in the resurrection of Christ, or even from eternity, and is then appropriated much later by the subject in faith. Then that faith is no more than a vessel or instrument, a merely passive thing, so that it becomes hard to derive from it the new life of sanctification. On the other hand, if a person is focused more on practical than on speculative interests, one naturally tries to forge a close connection between justification and faith. In that case, justification coincides with the benefit of the forgiveness of sins, which is received and enjoyed in faith, and faith becomes communion with Christ. It has Christ dwell in us through his Spirit, assures us of God’s benevolence toward us, and pours out new life and new powers in our hearts.”
    […]
    “As a rule, Reformed theologians tried to avoid two extremes [i.e., favoring one over the other] and to that end soon began to employ the distinction between active and passive justification.”

    Worth reading in full.

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  150. Correction of myself: Rather than “favoring one over the other,” the two extremes to be avoided, according to Bavinck, are actually dismissing one in favor of the other. As you read on, it’s clear that for Bavinck the objective/forensic aspect is clearly foundational to the subjective, but this does not lead him to dismiss the subjective.

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  151. Darryl, and by extension, all who want to prioritize the forensic work of Christ for justification/salvation; I suggest you are ignoring what both the WCF and Scripture say about how God who decrees something from eternity, brings it to pass in time. According to WCF, Chapter XI, God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit does, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.

    As I have been trying to emphasize in previous posts, Christ is according to Scripture, applied to us not by restoring or destroying the nature of Adam we inherited at our first birth, but by providing us with a new nature, Christ in us. You misread Scripture if you jump to Rom 5:21 for a forensic explanation of Christ’s application to us without hearing what Paul has said leading up to that last verse of Chapter 5. Throughout the chapter, Paul is clearly stating that imputation and nature cannot be divided. He is clearly and repeatedly maintaining that as the sin of Adam was imputed to us, so was his nature such that we, like Adam, sinned also. Likewise, as the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, so was His nature: For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life Romans 5:10 (ASV). Lest you misread “”saved by his life” as simply his obedient life being imputed to us, Paul makes it clear in 2 Cor 5:10 that “we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad,” and then in 5:17 “Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.”

    Again, Paul says in Galatians 2:20-21″ I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.”

    It is not possible to reduce the meaning of all of these and the many more verses relating to the new nature and life of Christ in us as merely the imputation of His obedience, but rather, as Romans 8:3 -9 makes abundantly clear, the new life in us. “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: 4 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace: 7 because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be: 8 and they that are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Romans 8:3-9 (ASV)

    Darryl, I suggest you are gravely mistaken if all you are looking to the WCF and Scripture for is comfort and its attendant gratitude/feeble attempts to be obedient to God, while God is declaring that the comfort given is the strength (the true meaning of comfort) to live after our new nature (the Spirit) that the law might be fulfilled in us according to Romans 8.

    Beyond this, I really don’t find it at all profitable to distract ourselves with questions of cause and effect.

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  152. My despair is, that again and again I find responses to any comments I make come from confessions or writers and not from Scripture. Why is this? I am not wanting quotations from others but for you to show me how I am wrong from Scripture. That I would really appreciate.

    Just a few verses that further stress the virtue of righteous living.

    2Cor 9:8-10 (ESV)
    And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. As it is written, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; ​​​​​​​his righteousness endures forever.” ​​​ He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.

    Righteous living is to the glory and praise of God…

    Phil 1:9-11 (ESV)
    And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

    Why did Christ bare our sins on the cross?

    1Pet 2:24 (ESV)
    He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

    Lads, you have a deeply truncated gospel if you do not revel in the work of the indwelling Spirit as he transfers us into the image of Christ.

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  153. Don

    Just read your comments and agree with the thrust of your contention. I particularly liked ‘Union with Christ then is union with Him in death as a member of humanity (reconciliation), and union with Him in life as an individual saved by faith.’ I would say something very similar: union with Christ’s death (is the end of Adamic humanity) while union with his life (is the beginning of my new humanity). The old is not restored; it is condemned, finished – terminated. It is not transformed; it is terminated. New creation belongs to a different world altogether; it is a world where sin, law, and flesh have no authority or place. This is the world by faith we inhabit.

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  154. Don Frank continues to beg the question when he says “You misread Scripture if you jump to Rom 5:21 for a forensic explanation of Christ’s application to us without hearing what Paul has said leading up to that last verse of Chapter 5. Throughout the chapter, Paul is clearly stating that imputation and nature cannot be divided.”

    mark: My guess is that you say “throughout because you cannot find your conclusion in the details. Nobody is denying that corruption results from guilt or that regeneration results from the imputation of the righteousness. (Well, you seem to, when you make the imputation the result of regeneration, but that’s cause-effect language and that something you don’t use….)

    Don: He is clearly and repeatedly maintaining that as the sin of Adam was imputed to us, so was his nature such that we, like Adam, sinned also. Likewise, as the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, so was His nature: For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life Romans 5:10 (ASV).

    Mark: So does “Life” here mean “nature”? The word “nature” is not in the text. The two most common explanations in the commentaries for “life” is either the active obedience or the resurrection. ( I tend to go with resurrection, because of the “shall be”.) But what commentaries say that “his life” means some king of union or participation in his nature? In his human nature? In the divine nature?

    Don:Lest you misread “”saved by his life” as simply his obedient life being imputed to us, Paul makes it clear in 2 Cor 5:10 that “we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad,” and then in 5:17 “Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.”

    mark: I would think that the task is not simply to quote texts but to tell us what you think they mean. Even if you don’t like confessions or commentaries, you coud still tell us why Paul brings up the judgement at that point in the text. I am convinced that it’s because the context is talking about being ambassadors to those who have not yet received the reconciliation. Those to whom the reconciliation has not been legally applied are still under the wrath of God, and face that judgment. Those who have already been justified have already passed from death to life. Or do you think there is some kind of second justification that those who have been justified will need, and that this second justification will need the supplement of what God works in us?

    In terms of II Cor 5:17, there is absolutely no reason (except perhaps your own bias) that “the new creation” (not new creatures) should be read in non-forensic terms. The entire context is about judgment before God, the non-imputation of sins, reconciliation to God.

    Don: Again, Paul says in Galatians 2:20-21″ I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. I do not make void the grace of God: for if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nought.”
    It is not possible to reduce the meaning of all of these and the many more verses relating to the new nature and life of Christ in us as merely the imputation of His obedience,

    mark: My concern is not reduction but perversion of the texts, misreading the texts. You seem to be taking a both/and approach to the texts, where you don’t deny “faith alone” or “imputation alone” or “his righteousness alone”, but you add an emphasis which destroys the alone. You can’t have it both ways. If it’s not Christ’s righteousness alone by which we reign, then it’s not Christ’s righteousness at all by which we reign. I agree with DA Carson that Gal 2:20 should be read as “Christ lives in regard to me”–saved by his life (see his essay in What’s At Stake), but whatever the case may be on that, again the focus of the context is not what the Spirit is doing in us, but what God GOT DONE by Christ’s death.

    If God could get it done by the Spirit in us, then Christ died for no purpose. That’s verse 21. But to you that seems extreme, a reduction, an unnecessary either or when you could have both, a righteousness that consists of both what God did in Christ and what God does in your new nature.

    Again, on Romans 8:4, you are simply wrong to think it make your case. In my next post, I will not simply quote it, but quote some folks who interpret the text.

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  155. Nobody knows who m mc is, so let’s look at what others have written about Romans 8:4

    Smeaton, Apostles Doctrine of the Atonement, p178–”Romans 8:4–That the righteousness of the law would be fulfilled in us. That is so like another expression of the same apostle, that the two passages might fitly be compared for mutual elucidation (II Cor 5:21). This expression cannot be referred to any inward work of renovation; for no work or attainment of ours can with any propriety of language be designated a “fulfillment of the righteousness of the law”.

    The words, “the righteousness of the law,” are descriptive of Christ’s obedience as the work of one for many (Romans 5:18). This result is delineated as the end contemplated by Christ’s incarnation and atonement, and intimates that as He was made a sin-offering, so are we regarded as full-fillers of the law…”

    Doug Moo writes on 8:4 in NICNT, p482—”Some think that Christians, with the Spirit empowering within, fulfill the demand of the law by righteous living. However, while it is true that God’s act in Christ has as one of its intents that we produce fruit, we do not think that this is what Paul is saying here.

    First, the passive verb “be fulfilled” points not to something that we are to do but to something that is done in and for us. Second, the always imperfect obedience of the law by Christians does not satisfy what is demanded by the logic of this text. The fulfilling of the “just decree of the law” must answer to that inability of the law with which Paul began this sentence. “What the law could not do” is to free people from “the law of sin and death”–to procure righteousness and life. And it could not do this because the “flesh” prevented people from obeying its precepts.

    The removal of this barrier consists not in the actions of believers, for our obedience always falls short of that perfect obedience required by the law. As Calvin puts it, “the faithful, while they sojourn in this world, never make such a proficiency, as that the justification of the law becomes in them full or complete. This must be applied to forgiveness; for when the obedience of Christ is accepted for us, the law is satisfied, so that we are counted just.”

    If then the inability of the law is to be overcome without an arbitrary cancellation of the law, it can only happen through a perfect obedience of the law’s demands. See Romans 2:13 and our comments there.

    In the last part of Romans 8:4, the participial clause modifying “us” is not instrumental—”the just decree of the law is fulfilled in us BY our walking not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”–but descriptive, characterizing those in whom the just decree of the law as ‘those WHO walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Paul does not separate the “fulfillment” of the law from the lifestyle of Christians. But this does not mean that Christian behavior is how the law is fulfilled….”

    Steele and Thomas, Romans: an interpretative outline: “In order to free believers from the guilt or condemnation of sin, God sent His own Son into the world (in a nature like man’s sinful nature, but not itself sinful. See Heb. 2:14-18; 4:15). Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice for sin, and thereby legally put sin away and thus freed His people from its guilt. As a result of Christ’s sacrificial work, the just requirement (demand) of the law has been fulfilled (fully met) in those who are joined to Him. This of course is because of the fact that what Christ did, He did as their substitute or representative, and it is therefore counted (imputed) to them as if they themselves did it. (8:4)

    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.”

    John Gill: “internal holiness can never be reckoned the whole righteousness of the law: and though it is a fruit of Christ’s death, it is the work of the Spirit, and is neither the whole, nor any part of our justification: but this is to be understood of the righteousness of the law fulfilled by Christ, and imputed to us; Christ has fulfilled the whole righteousness of the law, all the requirements of it; this he has done in the room and stead of his people; and is imputed to them, by virtue of a federal union between him and them, he being the head, and they his members; and the law being fulfilled by him, it is reckoned all one as it was fulfilled in, or if by them; and hence they are personally, perfectly, and legally justified; and this is the end of Christ’s being sent, of sin being laid on him, and condemned in him. The descriptive character of the persons in Roman 8:4 is the same with that in Romans 8:1.”

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  156. John,

    I have read your comments as well, and am grateful for them.

    Mark Mc, et. al., You have not addressed my premise, nor do your quotes prove anything. I repeat that Christ is, according to Scripture, applied to us not by restoring or destroying the nature of Adam we inherited at our first birth, but by providing us with a new nature, Christ in us.

    I totally agree with imputation and I have no beef with the WCF, that’s why I started out by quoting it. But the WCF are meant as training wheels to raise up our kid’s to think according to scripture, not stunt your meditation upon God’s word.

    If you disagree with me that we are given a new nature, (Christ Himself) while retaining our old Adamic nature, which will be destroyed (not reformed) only when we die or Christ returns, then what you are saying is that we in our filthy Adamic nature are joined to Christ. Is that what you want to say? Would you not rather say that our filthy Adamic nature has been condemned and we persist because of our new nature, Christ, which is the same as to say because of our union with Christ?

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  157. Mark

    For every commentary on Roms 8:4 that denies that living in the Spirit is a fulfilling of the law a number of others could be supplied that assert it. But again, you are quoting so-called authorities (and I have much time for Moo and his commentary on Romans) but what about simply looking at Scripture. Look at Gals 5,6

    Gal 5:13-14 (ESV)
    For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

    Gal 5:22-23 (ESV)
    But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

    Or look at Romans

    Rom 13:8-10 (ESV)
    Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

    Or, better still, look at Roms 8. Surely the phrase ‘who walk not…. Spirit’ is more than merely descriptive. Surely it is determining. His ongoing point is that while those in the flesh are hostile to the law and do not submit to it (v7) this is not the case for those in the Spirit.

    Consider v5

    Rom 8:5 (ESV)
    For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

    Tell me, if we set our minds on the things of the Spirit are these tainted by sin?

    v6 answers for us ‘ to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.’

    Indeed by the Spirit we put to death the misdeeds of the body (v12). The whole context is the moral power of life in the Spirit.

    Everything about our life that belongs to ‘flesh’ has been put to death. God has condemned ‘flesh’ in the flesh of Jesus (Roms 8:4). The just punishment of death has been passed on all that is ‘of the flesh’. The flesh can only sin. By faith I accept that this is so and that God no longer views me in the flesh (and I must not view myself there – if I do I immediately feel the paralysing grip of sin and hear the condemnation of law).

    But just as the flesh can only sin so that which is born of God cannot sin. The new nature (or life, I will not quibble) is indeed the divine nature of which we are partakers. The life of God within is the life of Christ. It cannot sin. It is Christ (the resurrected Christ) living in me. Can Christ sin? The NC promised not only the forgiveness of sins (your sins and iniquities I will remember no more) but a transformation of character (I will write my laws upon their hearts). This ‘life’ the man in Christ I really am, is not only beyond sin but it is beyond law. It is not under the authority of law (it is married to Christ not law Rom 7).

    We are called, by faith, to live as people in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Faith is not just for justification but for sanctification. Faith works through love to sanctify us.

    Can I ask you Mark – and others who share Mark’s perspective – what do you imagine life in Christ is? It is after all ‘life’. It is dynamic, active, vital and vibrant. It is we are told ‘abundant’. What is this life? What are its hallmarks, its characteristics? Positively speaking, what is life in Christ?

    And please, tell me what you think and not what some commentator thinks. Don’t think by the way I discount commentaries – I have thousands of them literally ancient and modern, reformed and otherwise. I say this not to brag but to show I do not despise them. I benefit from them a great deal. But ultimately, it is ‘what saith the Scriptures’. We cannot rest on the opinions of men, we will forever be swayed and uncertain – we must be fully persuaded in our own minds and we can only be so when we face Scripture for ourselves.

    Re Gal 2:20. I have read Carson on this text and I must say I was surprised by his interpretation. I think he is wrong and certainly if commentaries are to be a criterion here few would agree with him.

    Gal 2:17-21 (ESV)
    For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

    In Romans we are told justification is ‘unto life’ Roms 5. Life is the focus here. I died to the law that I may ‘live to God’. The traditional view seems to have little against it. But be that as it may, the traditional view ‘Christ lives in me’ is clearly taught in books such as Philippians and Colossians. And neither Carson nor Moo would wish to suggest that the pursuit of righteousness is not part of gospel living or a concommitant of union with Christ. Both lay great stress on union with Christ. I tend to agree with you on ‘saved by his life’ as a reference to his present session in heaven though I am not sure it must preclude his life in our hearts.

    Anyway – good to discuss Scripture together.

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  158. Paul Helm on Calvin on Justification and Sanctification. Good stuff:

    http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2007/09/analysis-6-john-calvins-stroke-of.html

    Helm: According to Calvin, then, justification is logically prior to sanctification. It makes sanctification possible, and also makes it necessary. Between the two there is a significant difference. So what kind of distinction is there between justification and sanctification if they are inseparable? A logical distinction, a distinction of thought, but yet a distinction of the utmost importance, for confounding the two is deadly. There is no time when a person is justified and not being sanctified. No time when a person is being sanctified and not already justified.

    cheers…

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  159. Jeff, I can’t agree because you are using uniting again without distinction, and I’m not sure what Calvin means, so I’m not sure if I can agree or disagree. As for fighting, I didn’t know we were. I was merely seeking instruction on union, clarity on what is confusing, and to be honest, I haven’t received a lot of help since you also admit that union does not answer the charge of antinomianism (which until now had been the clincher for union). Plus, you have yet to say how union comforts the grief that comes from indwelling sin. You tell me that union (I suspect there is more there about Chrsit and the Spirit, actually) is the comfort. But then why do I still sin? Is this sort of like Christian science where I bleed (sin) but don’t really bleed (sin)?

    Truly, Jeff, the pro-union position resembles an echo chamber but not an argument.

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  160. Don, then please help me because my new nature keeps sinning. Is your answer that I am not saved? Because your understanding of the new nature we receive seems awfully neat and tidy — unless of course you’re a perfectionist.

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  162. Jack, I agree with Helm/Calvin. As long as you don’t separate but logically distinguish justification/sanctification, or imputation/new life, you will understand the clear meaning of the many Scriptural passages that John Thompson has helpfully provided.

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  163. John: We all affirm the Bible here. What we’re having a conversation about is its meaning.

    Others: Whatever the case, you still have to deal with Bavinck. According to Bavinck, Calvin isn’t the be-all and end-all who has tied up exhaustively every loose end on the issue of justfication, especially as it relates to other blessings. According to Bavinck, Calvin left some loose ends which need the supplemental wisdom of Reformed scholasticism to tie up, and they did so in the form of the ordo salutis.

    According to Bavinck, the objective forensic aspect of justification (active justification) has priority over the subjective, mystical communion with Christ aspect (passive justification). This isn’t contradictory, but yes, it does relativize the importance of union. And no, it does not deny the importance of union, but yes, it does relativize it.

    And hey, in the end maybe you just don’t agree with Bavinck (and Berkhof), and, if that’s that, I can accept that, but just know with whom you’re disagreeing. [And go and read them again to see why you disagree with them, or to see if perhaps they might persuade you.]

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  164. Darryl, where does Scripture or the WCF say that our sinful nature or our choice to walk according to it is removed prior to death or the return of Christ?

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  165. Don,

    If you agree with Calvin (and Helm), then permit me to observe that Calvin would challenge your thesis:

    Don: I repeat that Christ is, according to Scripture, applied to us not by restoring or destroying the nature of Adam we inherited at our first birth, but by providing us with a new nature, Christ in us.

    Your thesis merges two separate ideas that Helm’s piece takes great pains to separate.

    The one idea is justification, which is applied to us by imputation under the federal headship of Christ and not because of anything done in us. Justification is “us in Christ.”

    The other idea is regeneration, which is applied to us by giving us a new nature, “Christ in us.”

    The point of Helm’s piece is that we must keep those two distinct in concept (while simultaneous in time).

    So Christ’s righteousness is applied to us distinct from and not because of any change wrought in us. Compare WCoF 11.1 and most importantly, the Scriptural prooftexts that go with it.

    I think the J and S in Helm’s “JAWS” apply here.

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  166. The justified elect pass over from being part of the old creation to being legally part of the new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, new creation! The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

    Where does the Bible talk about the new creation being a new nature? Where does the Bible talk about union with Christ being a new nature? I am not denying the new birth or the absolute necessity for it. I am only saying that the new birth is not “union with Christ” and that it does not result in something called “the new nature”. The “new creation” has to do with a change in legal state.

    II Corinthians 5:14-15 “one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live would no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sakes died and was raised.”

    “Those who live” means first of all those who are justified. The category of “we died” is not about an addition of a new nature but about an imputed legal reality. The new man is not about a process of gradual transformation; it’s an either or—- this legal state or that legal state. Nor is the “new creation” caused by a “sacramental feeding on Christ”. Romans 6 is about God counting as the elect’s what God did in Christ in His death and resurrection.

    Only for those now in Christ legally has the old has passed. For some of the elect, God has already declared the legal verdict. One day, at the resurrection, there will be visible evidence of that verdict.

    John R. W. Stott, Men Made New: An Exposition of Romans 5-8 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), p45: The ‘old self’ denotes, not our old unregenerate nature, but our old condemned in Adam life—Not the part of myself which is corrupt, but my former self. So what was crucified with Christ was not a part of us called our old nature, but the whole of us as we were before we were converted. This should be plain because in this chapter the phrase ‘our old self was crucified’ (verse 6) is equivalent to ‘we…died to sin (verse 2).”

    The crucifixion of the “old man” refers to a legal (therefore) definitive break with the past in Adam and it’s something God declares to be true of the elect when God justifies them.. God legally moves the justified elect out of Adam and into Christ.

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  167. Maybe it would be helpful to go through the ordo salutis, as you Calvinists call it, and determine which parts of the ordo have to do with the forensic and objective work of Christ imputed to us and which parts have to do with the subjective and union aspects. Maybe then we can determine what is primary- forensic and objective or union and subjective. Is there a logical cause and effect relationship between these two aspects of justification? Does one have to happen before the other? And something which I have always been confused about is what actually happens inside of our subjective selves? Whether there was an actual ontological change in us was heavily debated during the reformation. And if I remember correctly the reformers were pretty vehement against the Catholics and Anabaptists that an onotogical change was not part of the new nature that we get as the result of our forensic justification. What the new nature consists of is also unclear to me. The scriptures seem pretty silent on this matter of what the new nature consists of.

    Also, as Brian related to me, there are deeper issues of sytematics involved in this debate of JP and UP that have not really been addressed yet. I was hoping that Brian might delve into that with a bit more depth and elaboration.

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  169. Don:

    This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel: under the law, it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the old testament. (WCF 7.5)

    To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, he doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same; making intercession for them, and revealing unto them, in and by the Word, the mysteries of salvation; effectually persuading them by his Spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by his Word and Spirit; overcoming all their enemies by his almighty power and wisdom, in such manner, and ways, as are most consonant to his wonderful and unsearchable dispensation. (WCF 8.8)

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  170. Bruce McCormack, “What’s At Stake in Current Debates Over Justification”, p106—“There are no hotter topics in Protestant theology today than the themes of theosis, union with Christ, the de Lubacian axiom ‘the eucharist makes the church’,etc….Forensicism (rightly understood) provides the basis for an alternative theological ontology to the one presupposed in Roman and Eastern soteriology. Where there is not seen, the result has almost always been the abandonment of the Reformation doctrine of justification on the mistaken assumption that the charge of ‘legal fiction’ has a weight, which in truth, it does not.”

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  171. Darryl

    I am not understating the enormity of sin rather I am stressing the triumph of the gospel; where sin abounds grace abounds all the more. The wretched man of Roms 7 is a man married to law, precisely who we are not. The amazing reality of the gospel is that we can overcome sin and produce the fruit of the Spirit – the new creation life here and now.

    Brian

    It is the scholastic element of which I am wary. Where a writer makes an argument and backs it up by Scripture I can grapple with it and gain from it. Where we have human logic with scant reference to Scripture I am unimpressed. At one time I was impressed but no longer. Human logic quickly goes astray and ends up not worth more than a hill of beans. It does not edify but leads to all kinds of confusion. Provide Bavinck’s Scriptural basis for his contention and we have something solid with which to work. When we see where and how it is earthed in Scripture we can assess its worth – whether it is gold, silver and precious stones or just so much wood, hay and stubble (as bulk often is).

    Mark

    I apperciate your stress on the objective, the forensic. I really do. I think we must first understand union in this way and I think all too often at grass roots level in preaching this is missed out. We must understand where God has placed us before we can say ‘be what you are’. But we can say ‘be what you are’ because ‘what we are’ forensically is not merely a paper position. It is not a legal fiction. It has vast implications for the present. This is surely Paul’s argument in Rom 6-8. He has established that in the death of Christ the offence of sin has been dealt with. We have been justified. But he argues that Christ’s death for sin was also his death too sin (Rom 6). He argues that sin is not only an offence but a tyrannt and its tyranny has been destroyed at the cross. We in Christ (in union with his death) died to sin. This is undoubtedly forensic but it is also real. Just as we are really forgiven and the offence of our sin is really gone so too the tyranny of sin for the believer is really gone. Sin, we are told, will no longer have dominion over us. Once we were slaves of sin but now slaves of righteousness (Rom 6); union has existential implications.

    Rom 6:22 (ESV)
    But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

    He does not develop here how we are now able to live as slaves of God but simply spells out the consequences of our forensic union with Christ in death. In Ch 8 he will deveop the ‘how’. We may discuss how union brings about real change but that but that it does so seems to me to be beyond cavil.

    Rom 7 provides an illustration of this forensic/relational change that union brings. We discover that believers are no longer married to the law but are married to Christ. This happened through our death in the death of Christ. This, as I say, is forensic, but the change of relationship changes completely our existential reality. Paul writes:

    Rom 7:4-6 (ESV)
    Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

    While in relationship with law the only pssibility was fruit to death (the rest of the chapter including the wretched man – see Moo, Stott not in Men made New but his later commentary where he has clearly modified his position somewhat) in the new relationship with Christ we produce fruit for God; a forensic/relational change has brought, as we may expect, real tangible differences.

    Indeed the metaimages for union all imply something more than the merely forensic. For instance Christ’s own image of union in Jn 15 is clearly experiential, vital and organic (or mystical if you prefer). He is the Vine and we are the branches. The metaphor is one of life and finding in Christ the source of all our needs for fruit-bearing. Indeed in John, union is always about communion. Union is fellowship. It is ‘I in you and you in me’. In Christ’s words:

    John 14:18-20 (ESV)
    “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

    A clear reference to a spiritual union of spiritual life in the Spirit. It is a great deal more than forensic.

    Paul’s metaphor of the body to describe union is also organic by its very nature and in various places is so developed. For eample:

    Eph 4:11-16 (ESV)
    And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

    I note only the growth and maturing of the body of Christ through its union with its head. Union here is far from being merely forensic.

    Union in Ch 2 of Ephesians has produced ‘one new man’.

    Eph 2:15-16 (ESV)
    by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

    In himself (in union with him) a new man is created. Forensic but much more. Hostility is really ended. Images of ‘man’ and the connotations of ‘created’ are all much more than merely forensic. That is why I cannot agree that ‘new creation’ is merely (by merely I mean only) forensic. The word itself implies so much more. Further Paul tells us it is much more; it is substantial. We read:

    Eph 2:10 (ESV)
    For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

    And again

    Eph 4:20-24 (HCSB)
    But that is not how you learned about the Messiah, assuming you heard about Him and were taught by Him, because the truth is in Jesus. You took off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires; you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.

    Col 3:9-11 (ESV)
    Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

    New creation is just that, new creation. And it is so because of the Spirit (Roms 8). It is in the life of the Spirit within that new creation is presently realized. The Spirit takes what is forensic and makes it real. He takes what is true of Christ and gives us the present enjoyment and experience of this. Again copious verses could be cited but a couple will suffice:

    Eph 3:14-19 (ESV)
    For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

    2Cor 3:17-18 (ESV)
    Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

    Thus we live in Christ and Christ lives in us. Union is also communion.

    Col 2:6-10 (ESV)
    Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

    Of course the full realization is future. And what we have of Christ through the Spirit is realized only by faith. It is faith that gives present substance to these forensic realities. Here we rest on the mystery of union where Spirit and faith work in harmony.

    Mark, you write,

    ‘Only for those now in Christ legally has the old has passed. For some of the elect, God has already declared the legal verdict. One day, at the resurrection, there will be visible evidence of that verdict.’

    I agree with this but I insist there is also a realization of this in the Spirit and by faith presently. Further there is a growing into the fulness of this (Children have life but grow into all this means and involves; they mature). Notice the process of transformation in the previous text. Spiritual union does result in transformation.

    Furthermore, union brings its own responsibilities upon us. We play our part in this transformation.

    Rom 12:2 (ESV)
    Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

    We must hold fast by faith to Christ with whom we are united.

    Col 2:19 (ESV)
    and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

    This union is the great mystery (once hidden and now revealed secret) of the gospel that Paul desires us all to grasp.

    Col 1:27-29 (ESV)
    To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

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  172. John T says: “Mark, you write,

    ‘Only for those now in Christ legally has the old has passed. For some of the elect, God has already declared the legal verdict. One day, at the resurrection, there will be visible evidence of that verdict.’

    I agree with this but I insist there is also a realization of this in the Spirit and by faith presently. Further there is a growing into the fulness of this (Children have life but grow into all this means and involves; they mature). Notice the process of transformation in the previous text. Spiritual union does result in transformation.

    Furthermore, union brings its own responsibilities upon us. We play our part in this transformation”

    I am surprised John T. that you are at least acknowledging the forensic in justification but I fear your emphasis on the Spirit, ontological change and faith as a substance rather than an instrument may lead you to something similar to the Gnostic doctrine of theosis or something similar to what the FV people are saying and the New Perspective of Paul folks are advocating where faithfulness and repentance are constantly looked for as evidence for justification.

    I would also be very leary of your comment “we play our part in this transformation.” I am not going to mention who sent me this but I think it represents a greater understanding of the meaning of the texts you quoted.

    “From my understanding of the Reformed point of view, there is indeed an ontological or actual change towards newness in regeneration, and that is because this change is the necessary precursor to faith–it explains the difference between those who walk away from the offer of the gospel as believers and unbelievers. This actual change is, however, minimal. It is really just enough to get the sinner to embrace Christ. The emphasis on faith is still that it’s passive/receptive. So it’s just enough actual change to get the sinner to rest upon Christ (Actually, that’s no mean feat to get the sinner to rest on Christ instead of on self, but I digress).

    One place you see this is in WCF 13.1 where the confession sees sanctification as a further extension of the change of nature that began in effectual calling. So in that sense, regeneration is necessary before justifying faith, but we minimize the extent of the change of nature that takes place in regeneration in order to keep consistent with other biblical statements that God justifies the ungodly–those who really are not sanctified.

    Here’s how I understand a basic breakdown of the ordo salutis:

    1. Effectual calling = regeneration by the Word/Sprit issuing forth directly into justifying faith (passive/receptive)

    2. Justification = Forgiveness and declaration of postive righteousness (adoption and even definitive sanctification are really implications of justification–whether you put them “after” justification, or instead identify them as extensions of justification itself amounts to about the same thing. I do have a problem with making definitive sanctification simultaneous to justification).

    3. Sanctification/Perseverance = Faith becomes increasingly active, first of all, in repentance, and then consequently in new obedience and love, and yet as it progresses, this blessing is always dependent on justification–This is what we mean when we say that good works must flow “from faith.”

    4. Glorification

    Neonomianism means “new law” and it comes into this discussion because there are many who would make faith and repentance into the new law by which a person receives justification. You are on the money with NPP and FV because they tend to turn passive/receptive faith into active faithfulness and this faithfulness sounds an awful lot like the bleeding over of repentance into the definition of faith until the two become one. The condition of remaining in justification coincides with your standing in the church for these folks, and what this ultimately means is that you have to be repentant enough to stay within the church’s good graces. Murray was sketchy on this issue, whether faith or repentance comes first–in fact he doesn’t give a definitive answer, and yet the Reformed from Calvin onwards have mostly given an unequivocal answer that faith precedes repentance.”

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  177. Jeff said: Your thesis merges two separate ideas that Helm’s piece takes great pains to separate.
    The one idea is justification, which is applied to us by imputation under the federal headship of Christ and not because of anything done in us. Justification is “us in Christ.”

    The other idea is regeneration, which is applied to us by giving us a new nature, “Christ in us.”

    The point of Helm’s piece is that we must keep those two distinct in concept (while simultaneous in time).

    Don’s response: I’m not seeing where my “thesis” deviates from what you/Helm are saying. I have not read Helm, but I certainly agree that it is not by anything done in us that justifies us. When I said “Christ is, according to Scripture, applied to us not by restoring or destroying the nature of Adam we inherited at our first birth, but by providing us with a new nature, Christ in us,” I was not addressing the sequence or casuse/effect relationship, but rather the need for a new nature as opposed to restoration of our Adamic nature. I absolutely agree that the imputation of Christ’s work on the cross (“it is finished”) logically precedes (from a human perspective) though simultaneously occurs in time with our regeneration (the giving of a new nature) and that neither is dependent on anything we do, but only Christ’s work alone as maintained by Paul in Rom 4:25 — “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” Per WCF XI though, justification of us, individually, does not occur until the Holy Spirit applies Christ to us. This He does for His elect, apart from anything we do first. And, justification, though it should be distinguished from sanctification/new life, can never be separted from it.

    Am I missing something that differs with what you/Helm are saying? Are we both understanding the concepts of “separate” and “distinguish” in the same way?

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  178. John Y

    It is impossible to read these texts I have cited and with any integrity reduce them to: ‘This actual change is, however, minimal. It is really just enough to get the sinner to embrace Christ. The emphasis on faith is still that it’s passive/receptive. So it’s just enough actual change to get the sinner to rest upon Christ’. That is simply to bury your head in the sand. I confess, I cannot understand this. Forgive me, but John, it seems dishonest. I not only rest in Christ, I grow in Christ. Moreover, the texts speak clearly about our role in transformation; it is active, not passive.

    John, I am not over interested in the ordo, especially between regeneration and justification. I don’t think this is at all clear in Scripture. On the one hand we may say faith is a function of regeneration (life) and so precedes justification (since we are justified by faith) but on the other hand we are clearly told justification is ‘unto life’ and so it seems justification precedes regeneration. This is not a tension, it is to us an apparent contradiction. I simply accept that both are located in our union with Christ. Our job as Christians is not to get caught up in unhelpful speculations that are of no value in spiritual growth. We seem to be able to nitpick over details that are impossible to ascertain while reneging on the blatantly obvious. This deeply perplexes me. Please, I entreat you hear the texts with the hearing of faith, let them have their say.

    Incidentally, have you read Tullian’s latest post on Luther and the Law. If it is correct it seems at odds with much that I hear lutherans say. It certainly gives the lie to a simplistic law=imperatives. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2011/09/12/luther-on-law/

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  179. I’m not saying that all UPers are working hard to maintain some kind of credit for their justification and sanctification but that is what it seems like sometimes. So, one could look at all this debate as the old Adam raising its ugly head, in sometimes sanctimonious ways, in order to look the publicans in eye and say I thank God I am not like those sinners.

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  180. Darryl, I don’t see WCF 7.5 and 8.8 say say that our sinful nature or our choice to walk according to it is removed prior to death or the return of Christ? What they are both saying is that the Holy Spirit is effectual in leading His elect “to instruct and build up” (O.T.) and “to believe and obey” (N.T.). This is not done deterministically, without us, but rather progressively (again I refer you to Vos), through or with us. Only we in our Christ nature can say “no” to our Adamic nature when tempted to sin, or repent when we fall into temptation. There is no perfection in this life — only after death, freeing us from the temptation to sin.

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  181. John T.,

    How can you say the ordo salutis is not in the scripture?- it is all over the book of Romans. Your Anabaptist and charismatic bias colors the way you read the scriptures. I used to read the scriptures like you do John T. I was a charismatic for 19 years before reading Michael Horton’s book Putting Amazing Back into Grace. After getting beat by the tyranny of charismatic church shephard leaders and then beaten up by the Law from the theonomists, reading Horton’s book was like a breath of fresh air. You can back to your boys now in Anabaptist land and brag to them how you beat the Calvinists and Lutherans over at old life but you haven’t made a dent in any of our thinking. I will guarantee you that. As Luther said, “Go swallow the Holy Spirit, feathers and all.” Which I believe Munster (not Hermann) replied with, “Dr. Luther wants to send the Holy Spirit back to seminary.”

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  182. Dr. Hart:

    With all the ink spilled here, it might be helpful for us to simply have you put down how you think union SHOULD be handled. If I’ve understood you thus far, your complaint is not against the doctrine of union per se, but the practice of preachers in not properly distinguishing between its imputed and infused aspects. To use my earlier locution, you want the Legos used every time; you’ve had your fill of the inspirational, nondescript wonders of union.

    Is that about right?

    Ken

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  183. Mark McCulley asks, “Where does the Bible talk about the new creation being a new nature?”

    Don’s response: I’m not sure exactly what point you are making with this question. In Scripture, the Greek term used in this passage is most often translated “creature”, not “creation”. Are you saying that we are simply a dead thing that the Holy Spirit simply leads to look like it lives. Sounds kind of like a puppeteer and puppet relationship to me.

    Mark McCulley quotes John R. W. Stott, Men Made New: An Exposition of Romans 5-8 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), p45: The ‘old self’ denotes, not our old unregenerate nature, but our old condemned in Adam life—Not the part of myself which is corrupt, but my former self. So what was crucified with Christ was not a part of us called our old nature, but the whole of us as we were before we were converted. This should be plain because in this chapter the phrase ‘our old self was crucified’ (verse 6) is equivalent to ‘we…died to sin (verse 2).”

    Mark McCulley then concludes: The crucifixion of the “old man” refers to a legal (therefore) definitive break with the past in Adam and it’s something God declares to be true of the elect when God justifies them.. God legally moves the justified elect out of Adam and into Christ.

    Don’s response: I absolutely agree with both John Stott and you that our old self which is crucified is “the whole of us as we were before we were converted.” That is required since our old self, before conversion, was bent on rebelling against God. But you seem to be saying that this is only a declaration of God. From Scripture, it seems pretty clear to me that when God declares something, like for example, “Let there be light” that sure enough, there is light. Are you saying that when God declares that we are alive in Christ, that this is a declaration without any effect?

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  184. I think the debate has progressed to the point where the Greek scholars and seminary graduates now need to analyze some of the main words we have been bandying about and get to the true meaning of the texts so that our biases can get out of the way. We still have not gotten to the systems that lie behind how we interpret the texts in question. Any kind of resolution to this issue will have to consider these things and then we, as individuals, have to decide what persuades us more.

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  186. Don,

    I may have misunderstood what you said.

    When you said, “Christ is applied to us by giving us a new nature”, you were opposing that idea to the RC notion that Christ is applied to us by directly changing the Adamic nature.

    But I read what you said as meaning that Christ is applied to us by giving us a new nature, as opposed to Christ being applied to us in two ways: forensically on the one hand (not dependent on a new nature), and transformationally on the other, in which we receive a new nature.

    What I perceived is that you were mushing those two together. But I see that perhaps you were not…

    Carry on!

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  188. A little more to throw into the pot, from Dennis Johnson’s book, Him We Proclaim:

    Therefore, the same gospel that initially called us to faith is the means that perfects us in faith. As surely as Christ’s obedience, death, and resurrection constitute the all-sufficient, once-for-all ground of our justification by faith, so also Christ’s righteous life, sacrificial death, and vindication in resurrection power are the fount from which flows our sanctification by faith as we grow in grace. The preaching that matures and edifies, no less than the preaching that evangelizes and converts, calls believers not”beyond” the gospel to “deeper mysteries” (as some were promising the Colossian Christians) but more deeply in the gospel and its implications for our attitudes, affections, motivations, and actions…
    … “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6-7). The Christian “walk” follows the path already laid out in the gospel by which Christ was first received, namely the path of faith, with thanksgiving for amazing grace…
    … The same gospel, faithfully preached, accomplishes both evangelism leading to conversion and edification leading to sanctification…” (pp. 68-69)

    What preachers must see and help their hearers to see is that the third act of covenantal faithfulness, the sovereign transformation of our hearts, though it is subjective rather than objective, is no less gracious than are his once-for-all obedience, death, and resurrection on our behalf. Because sanctification also entails our responsibility as well as God’s sovereign initiative, it is easy to forget that sanctification, no less than justification, is by grace alone and through faith alone. The Westminster Shorter Catechism captured apostolic, gospel truth when it echoed Paul’s new creation language to define sanctification as “the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” Both the attribution of sanctification to the work of God’s grace and the passive verbs “are renewed” and “are enabled” highlight the wholly gracious character of the process by which we grow in holiness by the almighty and all-merciful Spirit of Christ. Union with Christ is comprehensive, and salvation in Christ leaves no aspect of sin and its damages unchallenged or unchanged. Those justified by faith in the Son are recipients of the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of holiness, who (through our feeble efforts at faith and obedience) is at work to conform us to the image of the Son in purity and love. (pp. 265-267)

    A couple thoughts…
    It seems the good news both converts sinners as well as transforms and comforts sinner/saints, applied by his Spirit and received by faith. Christ accomplished something outside of us, yet for us, through his obedient life, his death on the cross, and his resurrection. Can’t it be said that it is this good news that makes union with Christ possible for the believer who is yet still a sinner? For God would not have fellowship with that which is impure. So we look not to union within us(?) but to the good news outside of us as we “walk by faith, not by sight.” I very much like Calvin’s description of justification (good news) as the “hinge upon which true religion turns,” i.e. every blessing in the Christian life flows from that event (his death and resurrection) and the meaning of that event (complete salvation by God’s grace, through faith alone in Christ). Amazing grace indeed.

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  193. John T.,

    I read your link to the Gospel Coalition article on Luther and how he defined the uses of the Law. I’m not sure of the point you were trying to make. The only thing I found wanting about the article was that the writer kind of denied that Luther saw a 3rd use for the Law which is not true. Here are a couple of links to prove that wrong:

    Click to access kluglutheronlawgospel.pdf

    http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/VII/7-3.htm

    Like

  194. John Y

    ‘but you haven’t made a dent in any of our thinking’

    I fear you are right.

    Incidentally still no attempt to provide an answer from others on what life in Christ looks like. Nor any attempt to deal with texts quoted that stress Christian experience of Christ.

    Another incidentally, I was not saying there is no sense of ordo in Scripture – Roms 8 makes clear there is. I am simply saying that the order of justification/regeneration is not clear and should not be agonized over, to do so is misplaced effort.

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  195. DGH, If you feel that such qualification is necessary for communication, I will happily do so, noting only that Calvin did not feel such qualification to be necessary because he used the idea of distinct graces (justification, regeneration) to keep aspects of union separate.

    DGH: Jeff, I can’t agree because you are using uniting again without distinction, and I’m not sure what Calvin means, so I’m not sure if I can agree or disagree.

    Lost me. Earlier you said that the historic doctrine of union was clear; now, you’re not sure what it means?

    DGH: As for fighting, I didn’t know we were.

    Said with a smile. I should have put the appropriate emoticon in there.

    DGH: I was merely seeking instruction on union, clarity on what is confusing…

    Hm. It’s a rough-and-tumble kind of seeking you do there.

    DGH:… and to be honest, I haven’t received a lot of help since you also admit that union does not answer the charge of antinomianism (which until now had been the clincher for union).

    Not so! I said, Calvin answers the charge of antinomianism. He does so by appealing to two graces which are distinct but simultaneous. I also noted that I agree with his answer.

    DGH: Plus, you have yet to say how union comforts the grief that comes from indwelling sin. You tell me that union (I suspect there is more there about Chrsit and the Spirit, actually) is the comfort. But then why do I still sin? Is this sort of like Christian science where I bleed (sin) but don’t really bleed (sin)?

    Union comforts the grief by the assurance that comes through justification. Why is justification subordinated to union? Because we are justified by being viewed in Christ. My comfort is that I belong to Christ, my federal head. I have not merely been pardoned temporarily (as the RCs would have it), but I have been pardoned permanently because I am viewed by God as being in Christ.

    Federal headship justification

    is the comfort that union provides.

    In addition, I am comforted that by being in Christ, I am also assured of the ongoing work of the Spirit to bring life to the sin nature (per Rom 8). Being in Christ brings the assurance that Christ is in me.

    Is that more of the argument you were looking for?

    Truthfully, it’s a lot harder to argue theology than math. One never knows what the other guy’s axioms are.

    Like

  196. Jeff

    I know we will not agree on a number of issues but I am a little suprised by your comment, ‘I am also assured of the ongoing work of the Spirit to bring life to the sin nature (per Rom 8)’. It is the ‘bring life to the sin nature’ that takes me aback. I guess I thought you would have made a distinction between the old naturem which I take to be our humanity in Adam (flesh and natural) and the new nature/man our humanity in Christ (Spirit and spiritual).

    Can you outline your thinking on this for me?

    PS to all

    The following may interest you

    http://thegospelcoalition.org/publications/34-2/the-inexhaustible-fountain-of-all-good-things-union-with-christ-in-calvin-on-ephesians/

    http://thegospelcoalition.org/publications/34-2/the-relationship-between-justification-and-spiritual-fruit-in-romans-5-8/

    Like

  197. If I hear what “unionists” are telling us, it’s that
    1 It’s “union” that causes transformation of moral character, and not justification.
    2 Justification by an imputed outside righteousness does NOT cause transformation.
    3. We can’t tell you how much transformation is needed for assurance, but you can be sure that when transformation happens it’s the result of “union” and not because of a mere change of legal status by which we become good trees instead of bad trees.
    4. As far as what this “union” is, I am still not sure. I guess it’s “not justification”. If it is agreed that there is also a “legal union”, that was only to move on to talk about some other “union”, the one that causes transformation.
    5. But there seem to be different candidates for defining “union’. Some say new nature, some say effectual calling, others say indwelling of Christ, others says “the life of Christ on our inside”…

    So then we could go back to the points above and add in the definition. For example, #2–you can be sure that when transformation happens, it’s the result of the new nature and not because you are not under law (even though Romans 6 gives that as the reason!)

    Romans 7:4–you have died to the law so that you belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order to bear fruit for God.

    “Unionists” might agree that this is some kind of “legal union” (with the death, and with the Christ) but they would insist that the “union” is “more than legal”. They will not accept legal union which has transformational consequences. Because they keep begging the question: you see, if there’s transformation, then it was because of something more than Christ’s satisfaction of the law for the elect. Why glory in Christ and Him crucified when you can do and also add other things to boast in?

    Romans 7:6–“But now we are released from the law, HAVING DIED to that which held us captive…”

    I Peter 2:24–“Christ Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that HAVING DIED to sin, we live to righteousness.”

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  198. @John T

    I’m a little confused at what you’re driving at? In a common world, wouldn’t our experience be very similar to those outside of Christ? Doesn’t the wisdom literature largely define life as experienced by us all? Isn’t it seasonal, filled with failure, success, joy, grief, happiness and sorrow? As a christian, isn’t there time for everything under the sun? Isn’t it all vain, and don’t the prince and the pauper share the same end? And yet aren’t we to be content and find goodness in what our God has provided us to do under the sun?

    Isn’t it in the cultic sphere where we find distinction and hope beyond this world?

    Where we learn NOT to interpret God through his providence favorable or otherwise but in the promises of God toward us in His son. Victory over sin seems marginal as viewed from the standpoint of the behaviorist and my native I.Q. didn’t suddenly jump a few points. Even the very faith by which I grasp Jesus, waxes and wanes and is assailed by doubt. I seriously doubt Christianity, except in the hands of word-faith practitioners, could be considered a ‘succesful’ life-view. I can think of quite a few easier ways to navigate life.

    I find what little progress I make as it regards virtue to come quite indirectly, more along the lines of Luther’s ‘spontaneity of faith’. As it regards virtue much less emotion I find I rarely arrive at that which I purposely aim.

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  199. John Y sends from anonymous:”From my understanding of the Reformed point of view, there is indeed an ontological or actual change towards newness in regeneration, and that is because this change is the necessary precursor to faith–it explains the difference between those who walk away from the offer of the gospel as believers and unbelievers. This actual change is, however, minimal. It is really just enough to get the sinner to embrace Christ. The emphasis on faith is still that it’s passive/receptive. So it’s just enough actual change to get the sinner to rest upon Christ ”

    mark: 1. None of us is denying that regeneration is before faith and necessary before faith. Some of us have questioned any difference between regeneration and effectual calling, so that one is habit or infusion and the other is about hearing and willing.
    2. The definitional question is simply this. Is this regeneration the “union”? If it is, why not simply say regeneration or new birth instead of saying “union”. Is it only the “in us” which is the “union” or is the “life in Him” also the regeneration?
    3. To continue to ask the definitional question, is the regeneration a result of the “union” or is regeneration one aspect of the “union”? But if regeneration is a result of the “union”, and justification is the legal aspect of the union, why can’t we say that regeneration is a result of justification?
    4. The quotation raises the quality/quantity question. When you talk about “just enough change”, then you open yourself to some questions. How much change would be enough to count as as evidence of the transformation (which of course could not come from merely submitting to God’s righteousness instead of trying to get grace to establish your own), which transformation would count as evidence that you might now be “united”?
    5. It will not do to simply dismiss thee questions as evidence already that the one who asks is an antinomian who does not fear God. If we have learned that the only thing that will ever satisfy God’s law is Christ’s work outside us, then certainly we will be skeptical of self-righteous claims by anyone who thinks they have enough transformation (so far, more and more). And to those who are in despair, we will not point to “union” but to Christ’s atonement by which the elect are justified.

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  200. Union comforts the grief by the assurance that comes through justification. Why is justification subordinated to union? Because we are justified by being viewed in Christ. My comfort is that I belong to Christ, my federal head. I have not merely been pardoned temporarily (as the RCs would have it), but I have been pardoned permanently because I am viewed by God as being in Christ.

    Jeff, this is confusing to me. It seems like you are taking the assurance derived from justification and crediting it to union. Don’t get me wrong, the first question/answer of the Heidelberg Catechism—that we belong in body and soul and in life and death to our faithful Savior, etc.—is indeed providentially comforting. But when confronted morally and spiritually with indwelling sin I just fail to be comforted by Q/A 1. Instead comfort comes in spades from something like 60 and 61:

    How are thou righteous before God?

    Answer. Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

    Why sayest thou, that thou art righteous by faith only?

    Answer. Not that I am acceptable to God, on account of the worthiness of my faith; but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only.

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  201. Clair Davis from his essay, “Systematics, Spirituality, and the Christian Life”, in the volume The Pattern of Sound Doctrine.
    p276–”Reformed Christians had agreed that SOMETHING had to precede faith in Christ. But what did regeneration before faith mean? Did it intend to say that there was a chronological, temporal sequence through which people coming to Christ ordinarily passed? Did they intend to say that people could be regenerate unbelievers, in the sense that they became regenerate years before becoming believers? It sounded that way.But when the theologians had discussed the order of salvation, they were thinking of a logical sequence, not an experiential one.

    p278, What should the sinner do? Should he come in faith to Christ? Or is it better to tell him to pray for a new heart? What does faith look like, if it’s placed after regeneration but before justification? As far as justification is concerned, faith is passive and extra-spective,not looking to itself but only to Jesus Christ. But from the direction of regeneration, faith is lively and transformed. Can faith be both passive and lively? Not if ordinary definitions are used. Properly understood, faith expresses such a radical heart transformation that it no longer looks to itself at all, but only and always to Christ.

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  202. One of my comments is still awaiting moderation and I am not sure why.

    John T.,

    I read your link to the Gospel Coalition article on Luther and how he defined the uses of the Law. I’m not sure of the point you were trying to make. The only thing I found wanting about the article was that the writer kind of denied that Luther saw a 3rd use for the Law which is not true. Here are a couple of links to prove that wrong:

    Click to access kluglutheronlawgospel.pdf

    http://www.presenttruthmag.com/archive/VII/7-3.htm

    Like

  203. Dr. Hart,

    I’m sure the people of whom you complain are also happy to live with the way that union is handled in the Confession and Catechisms. I think you have a real opportunity to influence your readers if you explicate YOUR view of those documents when it comes to that doctrine.

    I’ve learned a couple things from your blog already today. Why not add one more?

    Ken

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  204. Sean

    I was hoping that some would tell me what ‘life in Christ’ looks like. I fear the absence of response simply reveals that they don’t know. John Y did seem to suggest that it was a passive resting on Christ for justification. This is but the foothills. Your own question Sean assumes life in Christ is largely moral and ethical. It is of course this and I do think our ethical life is different from the worlds. Its motivations are completely different. Life in Christ should motivationally be all about pleasing Christ. But it is much more than this. It is delighting in Christ. It is rejoicing in Christ. It is knowing communion with Christ in our hearts. It is a sense of being loved by Christ and loving Christ. It is rejoicing with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. It is seeking to know Christ more. It is being found in him not with a righteousness of law but of that which is by faith and of Jesus Christ. It is an active longing for the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and the power of his resurrection.

    The Christian life is Christ and the longing to enter into by faith and through the Spirit all that he is. That is, it is to realise our union with him. To actively seek to be conformed to his death: death to the authority and power of the world, flesh, devil, sin and God’s law. It is to seek to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of us.

    It means I love all the children of God. It means I hate all sin. It means I abhor evil and cling to what is good. It means I focus on what is good and true. It means I do not love the world nor the things that are in it. It means I live for a world to come. It means that while I grow old outwardly my inner person is renewed for I do not live for a world that is passing away, I am not absorbed by the things that are seen but the things that are unseen. I live and pant for a city whose builder and Maker is God. It means that though I am free I will not use my freedom as a cloak for self indulgence. It means that though married I will live as unmarried, that is, I will not give my first allegiance to father mother wife children etc but to Christ and his Kingdom. It means allowing the word of Christ to dwell in me richly. To feed through this Word on Christ. It means to fellowship with Christ and to cultivate a sense of his presence. It means to draw near to God.

    It means being poor in spirit before God, mourning over sin in me and others, pursuing a pure heart with singleness of vision, hungering and thirsting after the righteousness that God approves and so on. It means being content with what I have and giving to those who have not, especially the people of God. And it means when I fail in doing these I repent of my sin but I do not feel condemned or accused. I do not fear judgement or rejection insteadI come as a son to God’s throne recognising for sons it is a throne of grace and I find mercy. And it means rejoicing in this grace and mercy, finding them sweet to my soul. And so it means I enter the holiest – God’s immediate presence without conscience of sin, fear of reprisal, rejection or retribution but as one who has a right to be there and rejoices in the awe and yet intimacy of where I am.

    I could go on and on. These are just a few things that are part of life in Christ. Few of them are impulses and features of the life of the unbeliever. They all spring from my life in Christ. They are part of what it is. If I were to sum it all up I would say the Christian life is many different facets of Christ. Above all else it is a reciprocal love relationship of Christ in me and I in Christ. It is an abiding. It should be a ‘for me to live is Christ’.

    Of course we all pursue these imperfectly yet life in Christ is all about this pursuit.

    I rarely sense this ‘life’ or an enthusiasm for it in the comments I read on this blog. I read a lot of delighting in abstractions and vain arguments, and quibbling over theological obscurities more akin to philosophising than to receiving the truth ‘as it is in Jesus’. Indeed so strong is the objective that the vital seems to be disparaged and disdained. And all this is disturbing.

    Before Christ commissioned Peter to shepherd his people he had one question: ‘Peter, do you love me’. I wonder how we would answer.

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  205. Darryl, in response to your question, “was not David a man after the Lord’s heart? Did he not live before the death of Jesus?,” I will let the WCF answer: “under the law it [the old covenant] was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation.

    However, though Scripture is not clear on how the above is true, Jer 31:33 and similar passages, indicate that there is a difference between the old and new covenants: “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”

    Prior to Jesus’ death, the law was written on stone. Perhaps Jesus wrote it on the O.T. saints’ hearts when He descended into Hell. Maybe this explains the O.T. saints sleeping until Christ died, and then emerging from their graves at His death.

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  209. @John T,

    You are describing an experiential faith, which I think most if not all here would heartily endorse, with this qualification or that. That experiential faith still must be strained through truth claims, lest we find ourselves enraptured with a false God and salvation. I know a number of folk outside our faith, who lay claim to just such a life. I just think a number of us are more comfortable describing that pursuit within fidelity to confessional commitments and cultic practice. I think it’s a mistake to look at blog entries and debate over doctrinal matters, which is necessary(the debate not blog entries), and conclude that this is the extent of our faith. I don’t know you well enough to quibble over your effusiveness and I certainly don’t question your sincerity, and I’m sure I fail miserably at times in my consecration to Jesus. Still, having trafficked in the romantic for quite some time in my faith and now having matured in my understanding, I find myself much less trusting of the experiential and certainly learned not to pursue it as an end in itself. I’ve heard well-meaning christian’s hammer over and over again ‘beware of dead orthodoxy”. I can honestly say I don’t understand who they’re talking to, if you look at the evangelical landscape; it would be quite a reach to determine that what ails our christianity is a lack of openness to the experiential or romantic. Our cup seems to runneth over with sentimentality. What you do find a dearth of, is a doctrinally grounded faith, a faith that makes distinction or is particular. It’s in the very particularity of christian claim, that you find it’s ‘heart’. I find everything else to be far too vulnerable to my idol-making mind and vain imaginings. I can have quite the “prayer closet” time, but if it’s divorced from truth or the confessing community, it’s fair to ask; what exactly it is that i’ve laid hold of ? What God has done for me in history and outside of me, is much more reliable and uplifting of my faith than trying to interpret favorably what’s going on inside of me. In short, I don’t see orthodoxy or orthopraxy as the enemy of enthusiasm, quite the opposite in fact.

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  210. John T says: “I was hoping that some would tell me what ‘life in Christ’ looks like. I fear the absence of response simply reveals that they don’t know. John Y did seem to suggest that it was a passive resting on Christ for justification. This is but the foothills.”

    John T, you are bringing back bad memories from my charismatic days. I wonder how Darryl and Zrim would react if you went off like you did in your last post when you were preaching from the pulpit and describing what life in Christ is like. Has it occured to you that perhaps you are drawing lots of attention towards yourself and very little towards Christ? Or describing your experience and making that of prime importance.

    I’m not sure the Law of God has done a deep work in you yet- Luther taught that much of the work of the Law was to deliver us from self-righteous attitudes that hide deep in our souls. We often do not recognize they are there until the Law starts hammering away at us. I did get a kick out of that post and I am super glad I do not attend charismatic/anabaptist like churches anymore.

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  211. OK Jeff- that is probably why; I did link two articles to John T in response to his Gospel Coalition piece on Luther on the Law. I hope Darryl can bring it out of moderation. I would like to hear John T’s response to them. Thanks for relaying that Jeff- I appreciate it.

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  213. Mark McC:

    1 It’s “union” that causes transformation of moral character, and not justification.
    2 Justification by an imputed outside righteousness does NOT cause transformation.
    3. We can’t tell you how much transformation is needed for assurance, but you can be sure that when transformation happens it’s the result of “union” and not because of a mere change of legal status by which we become good trees instead of bad trees.

    Yes to all three. Note that this is also the confessional teaching: We are not justified by anything wrought in us. So while our legal status in justification changes from bad tree to good tree in God’s sight, our nature does not change in justification.

    4. As far as what this “union” is, I am still not sure. I guess it’s “not justification”. If it is agreed that there is also a “legal union”, that was only to move on to talk about some other “union”, the one that causes transformation.

    Uh-uh. “Union” (at least in the Calvinic sense, which I take also to be the WSC 30 sense, following Fisher’s Catechism) entails a legal component and a transformative component.

    The legal component of union is federal headship, which of course entails justification. The transformative component is the indwelling Spirit, which of course entails sanctification.

    5. But there seem to be different candidates for defining “union’. Some say new nature, some say effectual calling, others say indwelling of Christ, others says “the life of Christ on our inside”…

    Check out Fisher. And Hodge.

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  214. Here is the other one on Luther and the Law. I did not understand your point of why you linked that article to me John T. I had no problem with the article, by the way, except that the writer (who is amazingly only 29 years old) kind of stated that Luther did not admit to a 3rd use of the Law- that is not true. These two present links explain the Lutheran position on the use of the Law, I am very aware of how Luther used the Law and it wasn’t just as a simple imperative which you seem to think most Lutherans think it is.

    If you truly want to understand true Lutheran confessional theology you have to go the book of Concord, Franz Peiper’s Dogmatics and Peipers writings on pietism. Here is the other link:

    Click to access kluglutheronlawgospel.pdf

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  215. Zrim: It seems like you are taking the assurance derived from justification and crediting it to union.

    Oh, definitely! That’s what’s going on in HC Q#1 also.

    Stop and think for a moment on the fact that Ursinus calls belonging to Christ “my only comfort.”

    Assuming he didn’t have an aneurism between Q#1 and Q#60, it must be the case that he is rolling justification up into the answer for Q#1.

    So the comfort for you is that you are justified apart from any righteousness in yourself. And the comfort for me is that no matter what I do, Jesus is not ashamed to call me brother.

    Those are the same idea (justification) expressed in legal terms and relational terms, respectively.

    To repeat the repetition: To be united to Christ means that He is my federal head, which entails being justified by His righteousness imputed to me, and not mine own.

    Thus, the comfort that union brings is one and the same as the comfort that justification brings.

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  216. Very helpful post, DGH. How is remembering my union with Christ supposed to be my power over indwelling sin? That’s fleshly: my power = my memory. Well said.

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  218. John Y…

    “C.J. Walthers Law and Gospel”, excellent recommendation. There’s a talk that Gene Veith gave at Christ Reformed in D.C. on the Lost Art of Reformational Preaching (from a hearer’s point of view). It’s available at sermonaudio.com. That would be a good place for someone to start.

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  219. Jeff, I don’t have problem with justification having both a legal and relational expression. But I believe the question was what brings comfort when we inevitably sin, which is to say commit that which puts us in the dock. And, try as I might, I don’t really see how the relational quells legal fears. If the analogy is the courtroom then I find way more comfort in the judge telling me I am pardoned than in him telling me we’re brothers. Sure, I am glad and heartened for his brotherhood as a fellow free-man, but I don’t get there until he first declares me innocent.

    My own sense is that unionism is to fail to appreciate the theological order of operations and instead wants everything all at once. That’s not really how temporal life works, and even though the ways of earth and heaven operate are at odds, I do think we have analogies for good reasons. That said, try a thought experiment and imagine you are in the dock and the judge’s verdict is that he’s not ashamed to call you brother. Is that really comforting, or is it more confusing?

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  220. Zrim, you still haven’t dealt with HC #1 except to imply that Ursinus is mistaken. And you seem to have missed my allusion to Hebrews 2. What is the comfort offered in the book of Hebrews? That God’s wrath, thundering through the law, is expended and propitiated because of the sacrifice of Jesus. And we are accepted in him because he receives us as his family.

    Perhaps the reason that the relational doesn’t quell your fears is that you don’t see the equivalence between the legal and relational?

    Consider: What is the purpose of justification? That we might be declared sons of God (Gal. 3). What is the comfort of justification? That we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5).

    The two seemingly different notions, that we have been saved from God’s wrath and are at peace with Him; and that the guilt of our sin has been freely forgiven — those two are in fact exactly the same. Our guilt is not abstract, but is a personal offense towards God. Its forgiveness is likewise not abstract, but consists of reconciliation.

    The comfort therefore that Jesus is my head, and that His righteousness is imputed to me (alien righteousness) is one and the same as the comfort that I am justified by Christ’s righteousness imputed to me.

    Once you can see that, you can see that union and justification are not at odds.

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  221. John Y

    When I say ‘I’ I am using the pronoun representatively not personally. There is of course an unstated assumption and ambiguity even in the use of ‘I’ representatively and generically. The ‘I’ could be replaced with ‘Christ’. Paul acknowledges this when he writes

    Gal 2:20 (ESV)
    I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

    To say ‘I’ is only self-referential if this assumption is missing.

    By the way, John Y, I can be as guilty as the next person of the vain arguments. I need to apply this to my own heart.

    Sean,

    I am totally with you on the objective and the outside of self. Were I commenting on a blog where the subjective was to my mind downplaying or denying the objective my stress would be on the objective and its importance. As I’ve said before both are important. I am glad you agree. Discussion can lead us to overstate our case or so state one side that the reader thinks we dismiss the other.

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  222. John Thomson,
    Get the feeling you’re hitting your head against a wall?
    Why are you the only one quoting Scripture?
    You make excellent points.
    Now I must duck out. I’m about to be called a pietist (or is it Biblicist?) again.
    I’m bookmarking your blog.

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  223. Having just taken the time to read the earliest comments and discussion re can I ask how those opposed to union as the basic category deal with Eph 1. It is surely a chapter all about union. All comes through being ‘in him’. Every spiritual blessing, exluding none, is ‘in Christ’. Indeed justification (forgiveness of sins) is specifically numbered among those.

    Eph 1:7 (ESV)
    In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace…

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  224. Ken, this is my point. Union does not need the attention that it has been receiving and I’m trying to figure out why it has received such prominence. I have my hunches about the circumstances that should probably remain private. But as for the logic behind the union fascination, I’m still compiling answers (that in my estimation don’t add up).

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  225. John T., life in Christ is going to church twice on Sundays, resting from work, going to work Monday through Saturday, participating in (or leading) family worship, praying before and after meals. It’s not that hard, nor does it need to be that long winded.

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  226. Don, check out Heb. 11. I believe that litany of heroes of the faith is premised on the reality of faith in the lives of OT saints. How could Abraham possibly believe with a fallen nature if he was not regenerated? BTW, the contrast you draw between the OT and NT is more dispensational than Vossian.

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  228. While Paul develops both the forensic and the mystical aspects of union John emphasises almost exclusively the mystical. For John union is a union of life; union for him is always communion. John goes as far as saying we cannot really understand and grasp the union without moral nearness to God. Obedience gives us the moral capacity to grasp and appreciate union.

    John 14:18-23 (ESV)
    “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you [indication of union] Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.[union for John is a union of life] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you [union involves knowledge objective and experiential] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” [obedience is the basis of spiritual understanding and receiving] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [communion (which for John is the same as union and is always dynamic and vital) depends upon devotional obedience]

    Sorry I couldn’t put inserted commentary in italics. Is there a way to do this? I see others do it.

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  229. Jeff, while we’re checking out Fisher, what do we do with this q&a on sanctification?

    Q. 15. How do they differ in their order?
    A. Although, as to time, they are simultaneous; yet, as to the order of nature, justification goes BEFORE sanctification, as the cause before the effect, or as fire is
    before light and heat.

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  230. Jeff, we need more clarity on union here, and union can’t be code for any other word that we think means union. Belong is not the same as union. And which kind of union does belong point to? You are doing what is very frustrating. You are using union in a very untechnical way and then finding it everywhere, and then suggesting that others disagree with a reputable theologian if they don’t find Waldo where you do. It feels to me like this game is rigged.

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  231. Jeff, btw, in my reading of union and its wonders, I don’t ever get the sense that the unionist’s intuitions are the same as what we find in so many of the 16th c. creeds, namely, what Zrim points to as that forensic cringing feeling. You see that feeling in Belgic Conf. Art. 24:

    So then, we do good works, but nor for merit– for what would we merit? Rather, we are indebted to God for the good works we do, and not he to us, since it is he who “works in us both to will and do according to his good pleasure” ^60– thus keeping in mind what is written: “When you have done all that is commanded you, then you shall say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have done what it was our duty to do.’ ” Yet we do not wish to deny that God rewards good works– but it is by his grace that he crowns his gifts. Moreover, although we do good works we do not base our salvation on them; for we cannot do any work that is not defiled by our flesh and also worthy of punishment. And even if we could point to one, memory of a single sin is enough for God to reject that work. So we would always be in doubt, tossed back and forth without any certainty, and our poor consciences would be tormented constantly if they did not rest on the merit of the suffering and death of our Savior.

    Because that creeping forensic feeling is missing prominently in unionists, they seem also to overlook how much comfort justification brings.

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  232. But Eliza, you’re in a Reformed church where such biblicism is unacceptable. So you’re in but not of the Reformed churches? And does the Bible teach hitting and running?

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  233. John T. which union? We have three on the table and unionists keep telling us about UNION. You’ve heard right, about how Unitarians garble the three persons of the trinity? So which union are you talking about? And when?

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  234. Jeff, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say I am suggesting that “Ursinus is mistaken.” But I do think it’s fair to say that HC 1 is synthesizing both our providential and salvific realities, which is indeed comforting in life and death, in body and soul. But again, the question posed was what to do when confronted specifically with abiding and inevitable sin. And I’m still not understanding how being called “brother” can do what being declared righteous can do. I’ve nothing against the former, but I really do think I need the latter first.

    So, no, it isn’t that I don’t see the equivalence between the legal and relational (I do) as much as I also see a necessary priority of legal to relational. Is it really so odd to think that I must be acquitted by the judge before I can enjoy his kinship as a fellow citizen?

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  235. Dr. Hart, I certainly agree with you on the prominence of union. It should always be preceded in some manner by clear preaching on the distinction between justification and sanctification.

    Once you’ve compiled your materials, I look forward to the forthcoming book. 🙂

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  237. John T.

    Sometimes I get to thinking that “union” is being asked to bear to much, which becomes, for this layman, too much to bear…

    How about?:

    John 14:18-23 (ESV)
    “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you [speaking to the eleven – though Christ will die he will show himself again alive to them] Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.[death will not hold me, thus death through sin will not hold you ] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you [union involves knowledge objective which is certain, i.e. what Christ did and what it means and experiential which is elusive at best] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” [obedience is the basis of spiritual understanding and receiving, but our obedience and love is always imperfect… even filthy rags. Whose obedience shall I depend upon?] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [communion (which for John is the same as union and is always dynamic and vital) depends upon devotional obedience, see previous comment on imperfect obedience… this is why justification is so central as that which comforts. When I look within for that devotional obedience I find no sure evidence to encourage… rather just the opposite. This, I think, is why Paul preached only Christ crucified and not Christ oneness with believers. Where do I look for evidence of union? To Christ crucified and the meaning of that glorious event for me, an ungodly sinner justified and thus fully accepted through His death and resurrection]

    cheers…

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  238. Jeff said: “The legal component of union is federal headship, which of course entails justification. The transformative component is the indwelling Spirit, which of course entails sanctification.”

    It seems to me that the modern version of union posits that sinners basically need two things, to be justified and to be sanctified, neither of which is particularly more important than the other, and that union provides both. But I don’t think the Reformed tradition would put it quite this way. I’ve been reading Berkhof’s chapter on “mystical union” in his Systematic Theology, and am finding it very helpful. A few points that stood out to me:

    1. Berkhof highlights the foundational importance of the federal union that lies behind union as subjectively realized:

    Reformed theology … deals with the union of believers with Christ theologically … In doing so it employs the term ‘mystical union’ in a broad sense as a designation not only of the subjective union of Christ and believers, but also of the union that lies back of it, that is basic to it, and of which it is only the culminating expression, namely, the federal union of Christ and those who are His in the counsel of redemption, the mystical union ideally established in that eternal counsel, and the union as it is objectively effected in the incarnation and the redemptive work of Christ.

    2. Berkhof then defines federal union in the eternal Covenant of Redemption, and the benefits that it procures for the elect, in solely forensic (and not transformative) categories:

    In the counsel of peace Christ voluntarily took upon Himself to be the Head and Surety of the elect, destined to constitute the new humanity, and as such to establish their righteousness before God by paying the penalty for their sin and by rendering perfect obedience to the law and thus securing their title to everlasting life. In that eternal covenant the sin of His people was imputed to Christ, and His righteousness was imputed to them. This imputation of the righteousness of Christ to His people in the counsel of redemption is sometimes represented as a justification from eternity. It is certainly the eternal basis of our justification by faith, and is the ground on which we receive all spiritual blessings and the gift of life eternal. And this being so, it is basic to the whole of soteriology, and even to the first stages in the application of the work of redemption, such as regeneration and internal calling.

    3. Berkhof considers justification to be “the fundamental element in the doctrine of redemption”:

    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. 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.

    Berkhof does hold union in high regard, and he certainly speaks of its transformative benefits, but he does so in a way that seems to me to be more consistent with classic covenant theology (than what I sometimes hear today), which viewed the imputation of Christ’s righteousness as central and foundational. If you don’t have Berkhof handy, you can read the chapter here: http://www.morningstarbautista.com/forum/index.php?topic=180.0

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  239. Jack

    How do you get the italics? Some of the qualifying comments you make I totally agree with – BUT – they are not what John is saying. In another place and context they are right but we must allow John’s voice to be heard as it stands. On specifics

    a) I don’t think in John 14 the coming is in resurrection but is in the person of the Spirit. His going here is not his death but his ascension to heaven and coronation as King equal in glory with the Father (v28) Verse 12 also confirms this. When he goes to the Father the disciples will do ‘greater works’. Further, it is the day when they will know (realise union) that he is in father, you in me and I in you. This was realised not between his death and resurrection but after his ascension and the Spirit sent (Cf v25)

    b) because I live you will live also…. resurrection of the believer is not in the picture here at all. It is union/communion that is in view – fellowship with God in Christ. Because I live is abstract. It may include, and is certainly strengthened by Christ’s life in resurrection but I don’t think is necessarily not limited to it. In any case he is is not focussing on the resurrection of saints but their experience of life in fellowship with the Father and son which is what eternal life is (Jn 17:3)

    c) you will know that I am in the father etc… I do not think the knowledge is principally objective though I do not exclude it but, is as generally so in, the knowledge is John deep and intimate relational knowledge. Eternal life is to ‘know’ the Father and Son. This is not knowledge ‘about’ but relationship with. It is experiential as a brother knows a sister, a father knows a son etc. A cursory reading of John’s writings bears this out. If you think this kind of knowledge is elusive Jack then your argument is with John the apostle not John Thomson. When Paul says ‘I know whom I have believed’ his confidence is not on a merely objective knowledge but a profound experiential knowledge. He ‘knew’ Christ.

    d) our obedience and love is at best imperfect. Absolutely. And as a result our communion is at best imperfect and our realization of our union (both objectively and subjectively) is impaired. How can it be otherwise. To the extent we walk in darkness we cannot know him who is the light. To the degree we embrace the ways of death we cannot know the one who is life. Fellowship/communion is sharing in common. So as we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship…. (1 Jn 1).

    d) ‘this is why justification is so central as that which comforts. When I look within for that devotional obedience I find no sure evidence to encourage… rather just the opposite.’. Justification does bring comfort. John in his epistle can remind us that the blood of Jesus Christ God’s son cleanses us from all sin. But Justification is not in view here. John is considering fellowship with God (communion in union). However, I cannot agree that devotional obedience does not bring assurance. Or better, John does not agree. John sees the life of fellowship with God developed in the soul as a source of great assurance and its diminishing a cause for failing assurance. This is what his first letter is all about. As we walk in truth, love and righteousness this gives a deep assurance of our relationship to God. And that assurance is not a kind of outside look where we tot up the brownie points and think we are doing all right (though some form of such testing is not invalid) but is again that intuitive/heart knowledge that comes simply from the security of intimacy in relationship. When I am near to God I feel instinctively a profound assurance: when I am far from God such assurance is missing. Intimacy in relationship creates security in the relationship. This pervades John’s epistles.

    I cannot comment further at the moment.

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  240. David R,

    Thanks. As an aside, I didn’t ignore your earlier comments, but have been chewing on them.

    I have read Berkhof several times (and even quoted from him in these union discussions).

    The distinction that Berkhof makes between forensic union and mystical union is a later development in the theology. The earlier Reformers, even into the WCoF, use the term “union” in an undifferentiated sense, and then differentiate between types of graces (forensic, transformative) that are received in union with Christ.

    To a certain extent, the development of “types of union” (seen in Berkhof and Hodge, but not WSC 30 or Witsius (IIRC) or Fisher or Calvin or Ursinus) happens perhaps because of the need to clarify that imputation is central, as you say.

    The only problem I have with Berkhof (again, IIRC) to push forensic union back before the moment of faith, which has the effect of blurring justification and the atonement.

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  241. dgh: What do you mean by “such biblicism”? Wondering why only one person quotes Scripture?
    And I was right that I’d be accused again.

    I think John Frame was right when he said:
    “We should expect that those who hold an authentic view of sola Scriptura will sometimes be confused with biblicists. Indeed, if we are not occasionally accused of biblicism, we should be concerned about the accuracy of our teaching in this area.”

    Nuff said.

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  242. Fisher via DGH via David R: Q. 15. How do they [J&S] differ in their order?
    A. Although, as to time, they are simultaneous; yet, as to the order of nature, justification goes BEFORE sanctification, as the cause before the effect, or as fire is
    before light and heat.

    I think here Fisher is dealing with something difficult that Helm also deals with. There is a temporal order: J & S are simultaneous. There is a logical order: J comes before S.

    This is not a strict causal relationship (for cause requires sequence in time), yet there is something in it that is like a cause.

    Thus we can say, “The indicative precedes the imperative” but not that “justification causes sanctification.”

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  243. Incidentally, Berkhof explains in what sense justification causes sanctification here (excerpted from one of the quotes above):

    This imputation of the righteousness of Christ to His people in the counsel of redemption is sometimes represented as a justification from eternity. It is certainly the eternal basis of our justification by faith, and is the ground on which we receive all spiritual blessings and the gift of life eternal. And this being so, it is basic to the whole of soteriology, and even to the first stages in the application of the work of redemption, such as regeneration and internal calling.

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  244. DGH: Jeff, we need more clarity on union here, and union can’t be code for any other word that we think means union. Belong is not the same as union. And which kind of union does belong point to? You are doing what is very frustrating. You are using union in a very untechnical way and then finding it everywhere, and then suggesting that others disagree with a reputable theologian if they don’t find Waldo where you do. It feels to me like this game is rigged.

    Well, we need to find a new way of talking about this, then.

    I’d like to take at face value that you really are trying to achieve clarity and not simply finding occasion to mock or undermine union in general.

    And I’d like for you to take at face value that I’ve been doing my homework and trying my best to represent the views of theologians across the centuries and various schools (Old Princeton, Dutch, etc.), and not merely trying to “rig a game” as you say that I am.

    And clarity is of course a most excellent goal.

    So how can we achieve that?

    I’ll admit: one hole in my homework is that I have not read Gaffin nor Garcia extensively. $100/book is reserved for things like Numerical Methods, 9th ed.

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  245. Zrim: So, no, it isn’t that I don’t see the equivalence between the legal and relational (I do) as much as I also see a necessary priority of legal to relational. Is it really so odd to think that I must be acquitted by the judge before I can enjoy his kinship as a fellow citizen?

    I’ve been thinking some more about your marriage analogy. For you, the declaration creates the marriage. Here in your courtroom analogy, the verdict makes possible the kinship.

    Thus you say, “justification causes union.”

    And of course, the most significant falsifying piece of evidence (in the Reformed tradition) is WSC 30: we are justified by being united with Christ, which is done in our effectual calling.

    So then we ask, well, what’s wrong with Zrim’s analogy? After all, your point is certainly true for human marriages, and human marriages are a picture of Christ’s relationship with his church.

    And here’s why the analogy breaks down. In a human marriage, two equals come together to make their vows and are declared on the basis of those vows to be married.

    But in God’s marriage to his church, the church (its members individually) requires a righteousness outside of herself to be applied to make her suitable marriage material. AND, that righteousness must come from the groom. The bride, which is the church, has to receive the legal cover of the groom in order to be righteous.

    So here’s a pretty paradox: the bride must be clean before she is married; but she can be clean only by being counted as belonging to the groom, as covered by the groom.

    The solution is union. Specifically, federal headship and the limited atonement that inheres to federal headship. In the atonement, Christ dies for his elect. In effectual calling, we are united to Christ so that He becomes our head in legal fact. We are then justified on the basis of the forensic imputation of His righteousness to us.

    Notice that it would be impossible to reverse this. “justification causes federal headship” is obviously impossible.

    So the reason that your marriage analogy breaks down is that it implicitly assume the marriage of equals. In our peculiar case, the marriage of God to the church, the members of the church must come under the headship of Christ in order to become clean, prior to being eligible for marriage.

    Does that make sense?

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  246. David R: Yes, that Berkhof quote was what I had in mind when I suggested that he blurs the distinction between the atonement and justification. I’ve noticed a tendency in the Dutch school to do this, culminating in Kuyper’s “eternal justification.”

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  247. Jeff,

    Thanks, and no problem, please take your time chewing.

    The distinction that Berkhof makes between forensic union and mystical union is a later development in the theology. The earlier Reformers, even into the WCoF, use the term ‘union’ in an undifferentiated sense, and then differentiate between types of graces (forensic, transformative) that are received in union with Christ.

    I agree that the doctrine developed over time, but I think it’s pretty clear in the WCF (even if the terminology is not there), for example, in 3.5 and 8.1.

    To a certain extent, the development of “types of union” (seen in Berkhof and Hodge, but not WSC 30 or Witsius (IIRC) or Fisher or Calvin or Ursinus) happens perhaps because of the need to clarify that imputation is central, as you say.

    Yes, I think so. But actually, here it is in Witsius (quoted by Scott Clark, I’m not sure of the source, probably Economy of the Covenants I would think):

    I. If these things be properly considered, it will not be difficult to explain, whether, and in what way, the elect are united to Christ before faith, or whether they are not. Doubtless they are united to him, 1. In the eternal decree of God, which, however, includes nothing, except that their actual union shall take place; as was already demonstrated.

    II. By an union of eternal consent, wherein Christ was constituted by the Father the head of all those who were to be saved, and that he should represent their persons; hence it was, that Christ obeying the commandment of the Father, and suffering for them, they are reckoned in the judgment of God to have obeyed and suffered in him. All these things, however, do not hinder, but that considered in themselves, before their regeneration, they are far from God and Christ, according to that their present state.

    III. By a true and a real union, (but which is only passive on their part), they are united to Christ when his Spirit first takes possession of them, and infuses into them a principle of new life: the beginning of which life can be from nothing else but from union with the Spirit of Christ; who is to the soul, but in a far more excellent manner, in respect of spiritual life, what the soul is to the body in respect of animal and human life. As therefore the union of soul and body is in order of nature prior to the life of man; so also the union of the Spirit of Christ and the soul is prior to the life of a Christian. Further, since faith is an act flowing from the principle of spiritual life, it is plain, that in a sound sense, it may be said, an elect person is truly and really united to Christ before actual faith.

    IV. But the mutual union, (which, on the part of the elect person, is likewise active and operative), whereby the soul draws near to Christ, joins itself to him, applies, and in a becoming and proper manner closes with him without any distraction, is made by faith only. And this is followed in order by the other benefits of the covenant of grace, justification, peace, adoption, sealing, perseverance, &c. Which if they be arranged in that manner and order, I know not whether any controversy, concerning this affair can remain among the brethren.

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  249. Darryl said: “John Y. blame it on the computer Hal”

    I cannot say I was not a bit concerned about it- I thought I might have crossed some line with some of my responses. I was relieved when I found out it was Hal- the heartless and ruthless logician; or the Ivan of Dostoyevski’s The Brothers Karamozov

    I might add that John T has been a good sport with absorbing some of the dialog I have thrown his way in a self-controlled manner. Your concern for my soul is thrown back out you in my concern for yours. Hopefully, we both can benefit from the dialog and change where we need to change. I am not above your criticism.

    The Calvinists- Darryl, Zrim and Jeff are a good example for this combustable Lutheran

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  250. Jeff, I’m not sure how we do it. But for those who have not been entranced by union (which is not a denial of it), assuming it is there always and everywhere as a backdrop is just that — an assumption. But the real issue here is pastoral. Union is touted often at the cure for what ails believers, churches, even the Reformed tradition. I still don’t believe the doctor and would like to hear a second opinion.

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  251. John T : As we walk in truth, love and righteousness this gives a deep assurance of our relationship to God. And that assurance is not a kind of outside look where we tot up the brownie points and think we are doing all right (though some form of such testing is not invalid) but is again that intuitive/heart knowledge that comes simply from the security of intimacy in relationship. When I am near to God I feel instinctively a profound assurance: when I am far from God such assurance is missing. Intimacy in relationship creates security in the relationship.

    So many works that I must do, intimately experience, and intuitively know in order to have and retain assurance in my heart. Not to be flippant, but how well do I need to succeed at the above in order to have assurance? As opposed to say (from Calvin):

    “Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts [assurance] through the Holy Spirit.”

    You seem to be putting forth an assurance conditional on the quality of my walk. I prefer an “if, then” proposition to have “assurance” which is of faith alone, a faith that receives. In fact, I “feel” nearest to God through faith and repentance. When I am most aware of being a “miserable offender” and his abundant free grace, then I am most aware of being loved by him and in communion with him (Lord’s Supper?)… which evokes gratitude and renewed obedience in strengthened faith.

    cheers…

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  252. Jeff, as rules are made to be broken so are analogies made to break down. And I think that usually happens when analogies are pressed too far and made to do more than they are designed and able to do. It’s a little suspect that union solves the problem your over-realized analogy creates. The larger point is that women (and men) need legal declarations before they can be transformed into wives (and husbands) and thus reap the benefits of marriage. Criminals need legal declarations before they can be restored to citizenship and reap its own benefits. The relational reality necessarily demands a prior legal reckoning. (When I make this point it is confusing to me how you get that JPs want to pit union against justification.)

    So when you push back on Berkhof’s point about distinguishing between our legal unity and spiritual oneness I think you’re only showing more of your unionist hand—Berkhof’s point seems to end it for a JP like me.

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  253. Interestingly, Hodge’s discussion of union comes, not at the head of the ordo salutis, but rather, under the topic of sanctification. And when he talks about the effects of union, he of course mentions justification and sanctification, but he’s quite clear about the priority of justification as “the essential preliminary condition of sanctification”:

    The soul by this act of faith becomes united to Christ. We are in Him by faith. The consequences of this union are, (a.) Participation in his merits. His perfect righteousness, agreeably to the stipulations of the covenant of redemption, is imputed to the believer. He is thereby justified. He is introduced into a state of favour or grace, and rejoices in hope of the glory of God. (Rom. v. 1-3.) This is, as the Bible teaches, the essential preliminary condition of sanctification. While under the law we are under the curse. While under the curse we are the enemies of God and bring forth fruit unto death. It is only when delivered from the law by the body or death of Christ, and united to Him, that we bring forth fruit unto God. (Rom. vi. 8; vii. 4-6.) Sin, therefore, says the Apostle, shall not reign over us, because we are not under the law. (Rom. vi. 14.) Deliverance from the law is the necessary condition of deliverance from sin.

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  254. Jack

    I recognise that this was likely to trouble you. Yet, I say again your argument is not with me but with John. I am not denying the assurance of which you speak I am simply saying that it is not the only kind. John’s assurance arises from the experience of spiritual life.

    John begins by asserting

    1John 1:5-7 (ESV)
    This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

    Fellowship with God and God’s people arises from walking in the light. Of course when in the light we become conscious of sin and find both security and renewed communion in the cleansing blood of Christ (my sin finds acceptance in grace and the righteousness of God) In the rest of the book John interlaces his three hallmarks of life truth, love, and obedience. Again I say, to the degree to which these are developed in our life we enjoy communion and its concommitant assurance. To the extent to which these are absent so too is communion and so too is assurance. This is as much a law of spiritual life as it is natural life; security thrives where relationships are close but diminishes and is shaken when relationships drift apart and are cold.

    The believer who is far from God (through wilful disobedience, carelessness with truth, and a loveless heart) has no communion, nor does he have assurance of salvation, nor ought he to so have. In fact such a believer is unlikely to find any assurance even in the objective truth of justification for although he may wish to his conscience is defiled, his heart is hard and too remote from God to find joy in justification.

    At any rate, consider a brief sample from John

    1John 2:5-6 (ESV)
    but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

    1John 3:18-22 (ESV)
    Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.

    1John 4:7-8 (ESV)
    Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

    1John 4:16 (ESV)
    So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

    1John 3:17 (ESV)
    But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

    What is said of love is said too of truth and obedience. There is I believe a chasm between the confession of sin which we see as we seek to walk in the light (walk transparently before God) and the wilful and deliberate sin of walking in darkness. Where we are at piece with sin and do not aspire to holiness of life and a Christlike walk communion and assurance are impossible.

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  255. Darryl

    ‘John T., life in Christ is going to church twice on Sundays, resting from work, going to work Monday through Saturday, participating in (or leading) family worship, praying before and after meals. It’s not that hard, nor does it need to be that long winded.’

    I hope there is a measure of the merely mischievously provocative here. I believe there is. There must be for if not this is a very sorry state for a believer, especially one who teaches in a Christian Institution. But I believe better of you.

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  258. Well put Jack- and that has always been the difference between the Anabaptist tradition and the Reformation tradition. Our assurance is never in our performance but in the objective work of Christ which does evoke an obedience out of gratitude. The fear by the Anabaptists and Catholics during the reformation was that there would be no motive for obedience but that just is not the reality. The Gospel (faithfully preached each Sunday into our newly created man) is the only thing that overcomes our continuing struggles with our Romans chapter 7 failures. And we only find relief in the Gospel and the Sacraments- those things which are extra nous,ie., outside of us. It is always an alien righteousness that spurs us on to obedience not a righteousness we earn by our own personal obedience or devotional faithfulness. Christ faithfully comes down to us and feeds and strenghtens us on Sunday mornings- we are passsive recipients of his faithfulness to us. That is why the Sunday services are so much different in a reformational church than a anabaptist church. We do not have to willfully press in, in order for God to come down to us in the preaching of the gospel and the partaking of the sacraments. God promises to do this for us. And it does not have to enamored in highly intense emotional experiences. That’s the fix the charismatic needs as much as possible. When those highs don’t surface the charismatic does not know what to do so they try to generate emotion through will power.

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  259. John T.,

    I’m not troubled, rather I’m merely asking you (not the Apostle) a question which you haven’t addressed.

    … how well do I need to succeed at the above in order to have assurance?

    Also, wouldn’t you include “faith and repentance” as normative of the believer’s relationship to God and thus central to his assurance?

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  262. John T., so acts of piety count for little to you? Why would you question my devotion when I affirm such acts of piety? (BTW, herein lies the chasm that separates confessionalism and pietism. Pietists are generally suspicious of Christian devotion unless Christians say over and over they really, really, really mean it.)

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  264. John Y

    You don’t trouble me at all. I enjoy chatting normally though I get frustrated where you (or others) make contrary statements without any attempt to engage with the texts I may have cited to make my case. But you should know J-Y I don’t belong to a charismatic church. I am no more or less charismatic than say D A Carson. If you consider him a charismatic then I guess I am. By the way I didn’t send the links to you re Luther but to ‘all’.

    The fundamental difference between you guys and me is authority. Traditions, confessions, preachers are a very secondary consideration to me. They are guides that need to stand the scrutiny of Scripture.

    Jack

    Your question (as I suspect you know) is a bit silly. You and I both know that it is impossible to answer. How good must my relationship with my wife be for me to feel secure and safe in it? How deteriorated must my relationship be before I feel estranged? There is no visible and determined point. We are dealing with life and its principles not mathematics yet we know it is true. The husband or wife who thought otherwise would be a fool. A husband or wife will know when their relationship is so cold that insecurity arises. John makes no attempt to say at which point disobedience and unbelief is so pervasive that there is no life or relationship there, yet such a point surely exists. The real question is how far you are willing to ‘hear’ John (the Apostle).

    I would certainly include faith and repentance in the Christian life. I thought I included these in my earlier description of ‘life’. But faith not only rests, it wrestles; it not only believes, it battles. It not only trusts, it does exploits. If I know Christ in my heart it is by faith. Faith grasps all God is and has done in Christ and rests on it, rejoices in it, and is motivated by it. Faith, or the content of this faith, shapes and informs all a person is. Faith obeys.

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  265. Darryl

    Re the so-called three forms of union the question is somewhat irrelevant. It is irrelevant at a biblical level since Scripture doesn’t make these classifications, only troubled theologians. I am not saying they are not to some extent legitimate classifications but they are not discrete, rather they are aspects of a whole. ‘In Christ’ is just that whatever its facets.

    Thus, when it is contended that union is the overarching integrating salvatory category, the question ‘which type’ seems not only irrelevant but little more than evasive, perhaps supercilious. It is entirely secondary. Again, you know this.

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  266. Darryl

    I did not question your devotion. Though I do question it if it really amounts to no more than ‘going to church twice on Sundays, resting from work, going to work Monday through Saturday, participating in (or leading) family worship, praying before and after meals. It’s not that hard, nor does it need to be that long winded. It clearly does amount to more since this blog is presumably part of it. Most of these things are basic and necessary where possible but much of the NT need not have been written if piety (godliness) amounted to no more than this.

    Life in Christ is just that, a life. It is all-embracing and all-encompassing.

    ‘Pietists are generally suspicious of Christian devotion unless Christians say over and over they really, really, really mean it.’

    Darryl… this is unworthy of you.

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  267. John Y., with all the besmirching of Reformed piety and devotion, inability to reassure and talk of faith obeying I really don’t see what’s Reformed in your outlook. It’s actually the evangelicalism with which I am familiar. I don’t mean that hostily, but I do think a lot of it, after peeling it back far enough, is what makes unionism so suspect.

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  268. John T.,

    I believe we do not engage with the texts you put up because I think it is the systems we are using in our interpretation grids that make us come to different conclusions about them. And you seem to think that you can step out from these traditions and independantly interpret the texts in isolation of any tradition. It might be helpful if you would tell us what tradition you draw from the most. Perhaps I am assuming I know where you are coming from too much. From the few you have mentioned, D.A. Carson and John Stott, that would seem to make sense. From what I know of Carson he does not like to put a label on himself as do most of the people at the Gospel Coalition- like the evangelicals who broke from the fundamentalists. I believe Stott is an Anglican but I am not sure. You seem to want to be independant of any tradition but I think it is impossible to do that. Maybe others can give more insight into this matter.

    I know you would have problems with the following quote from Luther but do you know why you do?- it probably is because it runs counter to who you fill your mind with in your theological thinking. And don’t say you are being more faithful to the scriptual texts than us. You are being faithful to the tradition you are interpreting with. Here is the quote:

    “Precisely this was the difference between a theology of the cross, theologia crucis, and theology of glory, theologia gloriae. The first rests on the passive, Christian righteousness; the second on the active, works-righteousness. “A theology of glory,” Luther stated at Heidelberg (1518), in Thesis 21, “calls the bad good and the good bad:”in other words, maximizes works and minimizes God’s free gift in Christ. It puffs up, swells the pretension of righteousness within the individual, till he has dropsy of the soul and is spiritually inebriated. But while the Law lays down its demands and says, “do this,” and “it is never done,” it is the office of the Gospel and grace, theology of the cross, to come announcing: “Believe in this one (Christ) and everything is done.”

    Plus you seem to be giving qualites to faith almost like the prosperity Gospel people do. Faiths object is always Christ and it clings to what Christ has done for the soul. You make faith to be some active substance rather than the instrument which attaches us to Christ and his work for us. Faith almost has a living quality to it in your thinking. Where are you getting this type of thinking from? Tell us John T who you draw from the most? I do not believe you are getting it all from just reading the texts of scripture.

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  269. All: I don’t think it’s on-point to dismiss John T as a “biblicist.” The Scripture is the ultimate test of our doctrine, and if he wants to raise Scriptural challenges to various doctrines, then he has standing to do so.

    John T: The point of being Confessional is not to do an end-run around Scripture, but to realize that the church has already wrestled with these passages before. If you present a raw Scriptural text without acknowledging the work previously done by the church — for example, studying the proof-texts used to support the Confession — then it looks to outsiders like you haven’t done your homework yet.

    (You may have … it just looks that way).

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  270. I do not get what you are saying Zrim. Let me take a guess though. I know you think a lot like Jason Stellman who has trouble with some of Luthers theology of the cross and theology of glory distinctions. And he adheres to Doug Moo’s interpretation of Romans chapter 7. I am just trying to stay faithful to how the Lutheran tradition has interpreted our condition of simul iestus et peccator. You may not agree with that and maybe that is what you are telling me. If what you are saying is the more Reformed than what I am saying then I am saying I am Lutheran not Reformed.

    I get confused listening to Presbyterians and Reformed debate this matter because I think Fesko has come to the conclusion that Calvinists and Lutherans really do not have significant differences when it comes to both justification and sanctification. But I may be wrong there.

    Also, I have problems with how Stellman has interpreted the scripture passage about Christ telling his disciples that their righteousness needs to exceed those of the Scribes and the Pharisee’s. I know R.C. Sproul always had real problems with that passage of scripture and was unsure of how to interpret it. So, it difinitely does cause some sever problems and I am not sure what the answer is. Although I am pretty sure Lutherans would interpret it as Christ fulfilling that righteousness for us. How much it means of our personal righteousness from the progressive righteousness process I am not sure. But that verse and 1 John always makes me uncomfortable.

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  272. Darryl,

    Silence could mean consenst but not always. I am sure you do differ from some of the things I have been saying in my posts. Although I cannot remember a time when I really disagreed with you.

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  273. John T.: Your question (as I suspect you know) is a bit silly. You and I both know that it is impossible to answer

    But John, you are the one who has linked the knowledge and apprehension of our assurance in Christ to our walk in truth, love (works) and righteousness (our holiness) – to an intuitive-heart knowledge (experienced within?) – intimacy of relationship with Christ (another inward experience) – and being near to God as opposed to being far off (subjective). That says a lot rests on my end in order to know the assurance of Christ’s pardon and redemption. So, concerning the level or progress one needs in those things in order to know or have assurance seems a logical thing to inquire about. If it’s silly, it’s because assurance is not linked to the level or quality of my piety.

    Now, I’m not saying that the things in your list above are invalid or not part of the Christian’s life. I’m just saying that assurance is essentially “unsure” if it is dependent on my doing of those things.

    Also, your definition of faith is reminding me of how union is often used. It is being asked to be more than it is and starting to sound a lot like Paul’s definition of love in 1 Cor. 13. How about the one I already supplied above:

    Faith is ultimately “a firm and certain knowledge of God’s benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Calvin, Institutes, 1:551 [3.2.7]).

    Faith receives, it doesn’t do.

    (btw, if you have a contact link on your blog I’ll email you how to do the italicized thing)

    cheers…

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  274. Except some of your remarks about Lutheranism occasionally. I know we differ in our understanding of the Sacraments but that is a given. And the limited atonement issue, predestination and perseverance of the saints. I have never been able to figure out if our doctrines of justification and sanctification are almost exactly alike then why did we come to our conclusions about limited atonement, predetination and perseverance of the saints. It’s a mystery to me.

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  275. Darryl says check out Heb. 11. I believe that litany of heroes of the faith is premised on the reality of faith in the lives of OT saints. How could Abraham possibly believe with a fallen nature if he was not regenerated? BTW, the contrast you draw between the OT and NT is more dispensational than Vossian.

    Don’s response: The fact that the contrast I drew between the OT and NT is used by dispensationalists to draw a false conclusion does not prove that it does not point to some kind of distinction between the process of how OT and NT saints are saved. As the WCF and Scripture maintain, it is through the operation of the Spirit joining us to Christ by faith for both.

    For the OT saints, the regenerating power of the Spirit produced a faith that could only anticipate Christ in a more formal covenantal structure, which, for that time, was sufficient and efficacious, as the WCF maintains. For the NT saints, the regenerating power of the Spirit works as Calvin, quoting Scripture, suggests in the following quote.

    Both of these [the mortification of the flesh and the quickening of the Spirit] we obtain by union with Christ. For if we have true fellowship in his death, our old man is crucified by his power, and the body of sin becomes dead, so that the corruption of our original nature is never again in full vigor (Rom 6:5, 6). If we are partakers in his resurrection, we are raised up by means of it to newness of life, which conforms us to the righteousness of God. In one word, then, by repentance I understand regeneration, the only aim of which is to form in us anew the image of God, which was sullied, and all but effaced by the transgression of Adam. So the Apostle teaches when he says, “We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Again, “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds” and “put ye on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Again, “Put ye on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” Accordingly through the blessing of Christ we are renewed by that regeneration into the righteousness of God from which we had fallen through Adam, the Lord being pleased in this manner to restore the integrity of all whom he appoints to the inheritance of life. This renewal, indeed, is not accomplished in a moment, a day, or a year, but by uninterrupted, sometimes even by slow progress God abolishes the remains of carnal corruption in his elect, cleanses them from pollution, and consecrates them as his temples, restoring all their inclinations to real purity, so that during their whole lives they may practice repentance, and know that death is the only termination to this warfare.

    For NT saints born after Christ’s death, I see Scripture, Calvin, and the WCF agreeing that the Spirit’s work goes far beyond what was accomplished during the life of OT saints to more fully form Christ in us as we walk by faith.

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  276. Thomson complains that nobody is talking about his Bible texts, but when I did that, his only response was to say a. other commentators disagree and b. here are some other texts.

    It is not our walking after the Spirit (and not walking by the flesh) which fulfills the law in us. Rather, those who walk after the Spirit do not trust their walking after the Spirit, but base their assurance and confidence in Christ’s fulfillment of the law for the elect. “Walking after the Spirit” needs to be defined in terms of continuing to believe the gospel. Trusting that you obey imperatives better than other people is “walking after the flesh”. Phil 3:3–for we are the real circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and put no confidence in the flesh.

    Thomson simply did not react to the details of what Moo and Hodge wrote.

    Doug Moo writes on 8:4 in NICNT, p482—”Some think that Christians, with the Spirit empowering within, fulfill the demand of the law by righteous living. However, while it is true that God’s act in Christ has as one of its intents that we produce fruit, we do not think that this is what Paul is saying here.

    First, the passive verb “be fulfilled” points not to something that we are to do but to something that is done in and for us. Second, the always imperfect obedience of the law by Christians does not satisfy what is demanded by the logic of this text. The fulfilling of the “just decree of the law” must answer to that inability of the law with which Paul began this sentence. “What the law could not do” is to free people from “the law of sin and death”–to procure righteousness and life. And it could not do this because the “flesh” prevented people from obeying its precepts.

    In the last part of Romans 8:4, the participial clause modifying “us” is not instrumental—”the just decree of the law is fulfilled in us BY our walking not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit”–but descriptive, characterizing those in whom the just decree of the law as ‘those WHO walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

    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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  277. John Y: I think Zrim hit “Y” instead of “T” in his post to John T.

    Zrim: Jeff, as rules are made to be broken so are analogies made to break down. And I think that usually happens when analogies are pressed too far and made to do more than they are designed and able to do.

    Such as, when you try to use an analogy to prove that justification must precede union, a concept *nowhere* taught in Reformed theologians or standards?

    Zrim: It’s a little suspect that union solves the problem your over-realized analogy creates.

    What exactly do you suspect? I plead guilty to multiple counts of insisting on the necessity of Federal Headship for justification, and to aggravated attempts to require the same from you.

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  278. John T: Still waiting for a response to my Eph 1 comment.

    I second the motion. In the historical Reformed tradition, the “in Christ” language of Eph 1 has invariably been understood as referring to union, and the “in him you also have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” as referring to the fact that our justification takes place in (forensic) union with Christ as our federal head.

    Eph 1 looms large as a rebuke to the notion that justification precedes or causes union without distinction.

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  279. FWIW, some more cause and effect language (excerpted from M.J. Bosma, I’m not sure from where):

    “What are the effects of justification? That the justified are no longer subject to condemnation, the anger of God is removed, and his love is shown to their hearts. They now have peace with God, and joy in the Holy Spirit. They are also by the gratitude of their hearts moved to a holy life. Sanctification will follow justification.”

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  281. Jeff, what about John T’s dismissal of confessionalism on classic biblicist/pietist grounds? I wish he might show a little respect for theologians that may disagree with him, not to mention churches that disagree with him But as is the case with biblicism, it does an end run around the church and makes each Bible reader a pope who can dismiss traditions and people’s practice of their faith.

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  282. So Don, you’re saying OT believers were not united to Christ? But the confession speaks of those believers as possessing the benefits of redemption purchased by Christ. How could they obtain those benefits apart from union? I don’t dispute that NT believers have the Spirit in ways that OT saints did not. But you really should be careful about linking the Spirit entirely to the resurrection. Or are you suggesting that union has an already-not-yet dimension?

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  284. John Y., Jeff is right. I meant JT. Sorry.

    Jeff, re analogies, no, when they are pressed in such a way that makes hay out of the way legal declarations create spiritual realities–sort of the way pronouncements and verdicts have the power to transform men into husbands and criminals into citizens. That is what is so suspect to me, no matter whether it’s done by way of the Bible, the confessions, the theologians or common reasoning.

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  285. Jeff,

    Eph 1 looms large as a rebuke to the notion that justification precedes or causes union without distinction.

    I can’t offer a long response, but Ephesians 1 is not really saying much about union over and against the priority of justification. It does have much to say about union, but the language in Ephesians is far more relational than forensic, focusing on the broader, cosmic ramifications of God’s work in Christ through the life of the church and individual believer.

    As I read through Ephesians, I see a lot of the “in Christ” language picking up on the blessing language of the OT, that has to do with the blessings that Israel enjoy “in” the Land. This isn’t to diminish the instrumental thrust of the preposition “in”, but there is also a dominant locative sense of “in”. This speaks of the eschatological blessings “in” Christ, that intensify and fulfill the promised inheritance made to Israel, that now the Gentiles share in. This is much of what the “mystery” once hidden speaks to in Ch. 3.

    So, as rich and deep as the truths surrounding union in Ephesians 1 are, I don’t think it goes very far to settle this debate, since Ephesians deals least with the forensic aspects of Christ’s work in all of the Pauline corpus. If you drew out the Ephesians discussions of union into a broader of Biblical Theology of Pauline Lit, you would see a different emphasis, not a upending of the priority of justification, which is the quintessential theological contribution of Paul. Union just shows that Paul isn’t monochromatic, and gives greater color, depth, and texture to the multivalent nature of salvation, its order, benefits, and expression.

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  286. DGH: Jeff, what about John T’s dismissal of confessionalism on classic biblicist/pietist grounds?

    Which I rebuked. But even if he wrongly dismisses confessionalism, that doesn’t give us permission to ignore Scripture.

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  287. Jed,

    Nice to see ya.

    So, as rich and deep as the truths surrounding union in Ephesians 1 are, I don’t think it goes very far to settle this debate, since Ephesians deals least with the forensic aspects of Christ’s work in all of the Pauline corpus. If you drew out the Ephesians discussions of union into a broader of Biblical Theology of Pauline Lit, you would see a different emphasis, not a upending of the priority of justification..

    The priority of justification over what, and what kind of priority? For all of the pleas for precision pu-leeze, there are some remarkably imprecise statements going on over in the JP camp.

    Does the phrase “priority of justification” mean

    (1) Justification is logically prior to sanctification in the ordo salutis?
    (2) Justification is temporally prior to sanctification?
    (3) Justification is logically prior to union?
    (4) Justification is temporally prior to union?
    (5) Justification is more important than sanctification (or union)?

    Zrim argues for (3) or (4). The phrase “justification causes sanctification” implies (2). DGH, when pressed, adduces evidence that supports (5).

    Meanwhile, Ephesians 1 makes (3) and (4) impossible, and has been traditionally understood (by Reformed folk) to make (3) and (4) impossible. That’s the contribution that Eph 1 makes to the discussion.

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  288. That’s a relief Zrim, I thought you were coming after me for some reason. For what it’s worth; “Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep, it starts when you’re always afraid, step out of line, the man will come and take you away.”

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  289. David R: And when he [Hodge] talks about the effects of union, he of course mentions justification and sanctification, but he’s quite clear about the priority of justification as “the essential preliminary condition of sanctification”

    I’m not sure where you are in Hodge, but I agree with your reading. In the quote you provide, he clearly sees justification to have a priority before sanctification.

    But let’s be precise and tease out two different questions.

    (1) Is justification logically prior to sanctification?

    Yes. Meaning: justification is the essential preliminary condition of sanctification. One cannot be sanctified in the slightest unless one is justified. This is Hodge’s position, and I suspect yours, and definitely mine.

    (2) Is justification temporally prior to sanctification?

    No. Meaning: the change in nature and the giving of the Spirit occur at the same moment that one is justified.

    Hodge: The instant a sinner is united to Christ in the exercise of faith, there is accomplished in him simultaneously and inseparably, 1st, a total change of relation to God, and to the law as a covenant, and, 2nd, a change of inward condition or nature. The change of relation is represented by justification; the change of nature is represented by the term regeneration. — Outlines, 34.

    It is this second point that is (a) consistently taught, and (b) is threatened by the “justification causes sanctification” language.

    For the idea of cause is bound up in a temporal relationship: if A causes B, then A must of force be temporally prior to B.

    So: I’m happy all day long to agree with the traditional ordo: justification is logically prior to sanctification. Where we get into trouble is when people start forgetting that logical priority has no bearing on temporal priority. (In fact, in discussions of lapsarian views, logical priority is exactly the reverse of temporal priority.)

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  290. Jeff,

    Good to have you back as well. Hopefully your net free summer was a fruitful one.

    Anyway, I think you miss what I am saying here, from where I sit, your list 1-5 can’t settle the argument. The subject matter in Ephesians is too different to give solid evidence either way. Paul hardly delves into the forensic aspects of salvation in Ephesians, we are dealing with the relational, mysterious, and even cosmic realities of salvation in Ephesians. Paul doesn’t really compare and contrast these against the backdrop of the forensic, so I am not sure how you can say Ephesians settles anything with respect to the current discussion. Two different sides of the same coin? Okay, I can live with that, but union displacing justification in Pauline doctrine, I don’t follow.

    I think we all hold to the development of doctrine, and I really don’t think there has been enough work done with union to definitively settle the discussion. That might be changing, but I don’t think that any doctrinal or confessional development can be made that upends the work the the Reformed/Lutheran tradition has settled with respect to justification. What bothers me about the union discussions isn’t the theological discourse, or exegetical work in underdeveloped areas, it is the tendency of those in the Reformed discussion (unionists) to confuse matters that have already been settled. The discourse must acknowledge the work that has been done with respect to the ordo, and account for how union speaks of salvation in a different manner. What ends up happening is that those who hold to a more developed understanding of union, end up getting ahead of themselves and running rough shot over ground that has already been covered.

    I don’t see Paul casting anathema’s out for confusing union, but I do with justification. And inasmuch as the doctrines justification delineate with clarity how man is made right with God, I think it will maintain its preferred status, especially at a pastoral level where the real battle with sin demands assurance of God’s inalienable work on the believers behalf. Union has much to say, and much to add with respect to motivating Christian growth, but it lacks the stark clarity that justification because it is so shrouded in mystery. The implications of union aren’t likely to be understood on this side of the eschaton, as we struggle to grasp what our union to Christ entails. The language is so grand in Ephesians that it is dubbed a mystery, something that surpasses knowledge, but that the believer is charged to grapple with.

    The implications of union, even in Ephesians, play out in standard Christian obedience, as we go about our ordinary stations in life as combatants in a cosmic struggle. We can’t possibly understand how this is the case, but we can know at least something of the fact that it is the case.

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  291. David R.: I mentioned Witsius above, and you promptly showed that I was not remembering correctly. The man I had was remembering poorly was a Brakel, “A Christian’s Reasonable Service.” He says concerning union (undifferentiated!):

    Thirdly, the Holy Spirit makes believers partakers of Christ and His benefits. Prior to regeneration, they were not in possession of these benefits; although they were elected, salvation had been merited, and the ransom had been paid for them. When the Holy Spirit conquers them, however, He brings them to Christ, and gives them that faith whereby Christ dwells in their hearts (Eph 3:17). Cleaving to Him, they become one spirit with Him (1 Cor 6:17). They are united to Him as members are to a body, as a graft to the stem, and as a bride to her bridegroom, love being naturally inclined towards unity. This union results in the mutual use of possessive pronouns. “My Beloved is mine, and I am His” (Song 2:16).

    Union with Christ results in union with His benefits.
    (1) The first benefit is His satisfaction resulting in reconciliation with God. “Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20); “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God” (Rom 5:10).
    (2) A second benefit is His holiness. “That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor 5:21); “And ye are complete in Him” (Col 2:10).
    (3) A third benefit is His intercession. “We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).
    (4) A fourth benefit is His glory. “Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom 8:17).
    (5) A fifth benefit is related to the covenant of grace and all that is promised in it, such as redemption and restoration. “How shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).

    — a Brakel, Reasonable Service, vol. 1 Chap 4 (p. 184)

    a Brakel, BTW, would be the worst of unionists to this crowd.

    Look how shamelessly he finds comfort in union:

    He who has only been illuminated outwardly is also ignorant of the frame of heart which proceeds from knowing Jesus (that is, as both God and man) and being in a believing union with Him. This frame consists in having peace in and with God, resting in Him without fear, loving Him, and being desirous in all things to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord—thus to be lifted up in magnifying God in response to the manifestation of His perfections in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus.

    — ibid, 583.

    And forsooth! Amongst bazillions of references to union in ACRS, he fails utterly to distinguish types of union.

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  292. Jed, I had this really long post and decided against it. Here’s the medium-length post instead.

    Read Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, Chap XVI, paragraph 8: The Effects of Faith.

    Then consider these questions:

    * Does Hodge believe in the priority of justification over sanctification?
    * Does Hodge believe that justification is an effect of being united to Christ?

    Having considered those questions, can you concede that the argument here is *NOT* about union displacing justification (me genoito!), but about getting the doctrine of union right? Can you see why I would read Hodge and then read Zrim and perceive that the two are saying exactly the opposite?

    You say,

    Union has much to say, and much to add with respect to motivating Christian growth…

    And I respond,

    No, the important thing that union has to say, more than anything, is that we are justified because the righteousness of Christ our federal head comes to us.

    The place where JPs are falling down on the theological job is in restricting union to the experiential. Historically, this was never the Reformed doctrine of union; “union” from Calvin onward included the forensic element of Christ as our federal head, in whom we are justified.

    While you’re chewing on that, take a look at how Ursinus connects union to our justification and sees that connection symbolized in the Lord’s Supper in such a way that transubstantiation is unnecessary:

    This faith now rests upon Christ as crucified, and not as dwelling in us after a corporal manner. Thirdly, we are quickened by the body and blood of Christ when we are united to him by the same Spirit, who works the same things in us, which he does in Christ ; for unless we are ingrafted into Christ, we do not please God, who will receive us into his favor, and
    grant unto us the remission of our sins, only upon the condition, that we are ingrafted into Christ and united to him by that faith    , which the Holy Ghost works in us. This now being the manner in which we are quickened and nourished by the body and blood of Christ, there is no necessity
    that his body and blood should descend, or be made to enter into our bodies, in order that we may be quickened by them.

    — Ursinus Comm HC Qn #78.

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  293. Jeff’s quote from Ursinus says: “This now being the manner in which we are quickened and nourished by the body and blood of Christ, there is no necessity
    that his body and blood should descend, or be made to enter into our bodies, in order that we may be quickened by them.”

    This is very confusing to me. From what I understand both Calvinists and Lutherans believe they are eating and drinking the actual body and blood of Christ but in a different sort of way. Lutherans believe Christ comes down to us in the Supper (both those with faith and those without it) where Calvinists believe the Spirit takes us up to the heavenlies while partaking of the Supper in faith. It has no effect on those who do not have faith. How can Ursinus say that “there is no necessity that his body and blood should descend, or be made to enter into our bodies, in order that we may be quickened by them.”? Does not this go against what the Reformed confessions say on this matter of the Supper that we actually are partaking of the body and blood of Christ?

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  294. And how does this account for John 6:53-59: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum. And the verse that Luther went ballistic on in Marburg- “This is my body” at the last Supper he had with his disciples.

    John 6:52 is also significant here: “The Jews then disputed among themselves saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? So Jesus said to them vrs 53-59.

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  296. Darryl

    Accusations of personal popes is wearisome and predictable. The answer of course is that you have a paper pope. But actually even with it you become a personal pope because as this blog amply demonstrates the hermeneutical inquiry simply shifts from Scripture to the confession and there you must reach a personal conclusion and have your own ‘here I stand’. We all answer to God as he speaks in his Word and to that alone.

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  297. Zrim

    ‘with all the besmirching of Reformed piety and devotion, inability to reassure and talk of faith obeying I really don’t see what’s Reformed in your outlook’.

    What is your point? Are you saying I ought not to be engaging in this discussion? I am not Reformed though much of what is reformed I agree with and support. Actually what is Reformed is not so cut and dried is it? Few Reformed folks I know would accept Darryl’s description of ‘life in Christ’ as limited to these outward observances. I did not say assurance was not possible rather I pointed out John’s way to ‘know’ and have confidence before God while agreeing that Paul emphasizes the forensic. While faith obeying is not only taught by Federal Vision folks (anathema I know but Reformed) but also by many others who are more mainstream. Indeed, until fairly recent times my reading of Reformed literature over the years never led me to understand faith as merely passive.

    But to turn again to Scripture (and I know you know these texts for they feature in the controversy over faith-obedience but I think they are worth mentioning).

    Rom 1:5 (ESV)
    through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations,

    Rom 16:25-26 (ESV)
    Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith-

    Rom 15:17-19 (ESV)
    In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience-by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God-so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ;

    Then, of course there is Hebs 11. The point about all these heroes of faith is that the OT does not mention the faith of most. The writer sees their faith in their actions.

    I leave the matter of whether faith is always merely passive (for sometimes it is, in the sense that the focus is simply on humbly accepting what God has said) but passive faith always results in active faith (faith works through love). I hope this is Reformed but if not I am content it is biblical.

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  298. Mark

    I feel I did respond to your quotations from Moo and Hodge. My quotations from Scripture were in support of my contention that we fulfil the law through the Spirit. Interesting how quotations from writers seems to be considered more telling and helpful than quotations from Scripture. Let me add a further few arguments.

    a) Paul in Rom 8 describes those who fulfil the law as those who ‘walk by the Spirit’. This is active; they are not simply ‘in the Spirit’ but ‘walk’ by the Spirit.

    b) Rom 7 and 8 sit in contrast. In Rom 7 the wretched man has no ability to ‘do’ the law; he has the desire to do what is good but lacks the ability to carry it out (typical of life under the OC as Moo points out). However, by contrast the NC Christian indwelt by the Spirit has precisely that ability; it is that very ability the NC confers, a heart of flesh and new spirit capable of obedience.

    Ezek 11:19-20 (ESV)
    And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

    I contend this is the context and argument of Rom 8. I have considered Moo’s arguments in the past and have found them (in this instance) unconvincing. His passive verb is not convincing. It passive because it is fulfilled in us by the Spirit. Furthermore, it is fulfilled ‘in us’ and not ‘for us’. The descriptive points to the instrumental indeed that is precisely why it is this particular description. The following verses all stress the moral empowering of the Spirit. Paradoxically we fulfil the decree of the law (love) by being delivered from the law and being sanctified by the Spirit in Christ.

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  300. John-Y

    You will not be surprised that I do not see in John 6 a reference to the Lord’s Supper – at least not in any primary and direct sense. The reference is to our ongoing feeding from Christ in salvation. It is our participation by faith in Christ, and particularly in his death. It is the way of life he is describing – if a man eats this bread he will live forever. The issue is the source of true life and the sustaining of it.

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  301. A few posts back, Jeff wrote something that I want to highlight, ie, that the goal here is not so much the order and priority of “union” with justification but rather getting the definition of “union” correct. I agree, but also observe that how you define the word will determine where you put it in sequence, and also that where you have it in the order will influence your definitions.

    For example, if you think that it’s faith that unites us to Christ’s righteousness, then you could very well think that it’s faith that causes your sins to be imputed to Christ. But that order contradicts Gal 4:6–“because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit into your hearts.” In Gal 4:5, Christ’s redemption comes first.

    But the order will of course be confusing if you keep using the word “union” in different senses. When Jeff says that justification cannot be logically prior to “union” in Ephesians 1, that only makes us wonder which definition of “union” is being used in this case. If there is one sense in which sinners are in Christ by election, then “election-union” is certainly previous to “faith-union” in Ephesians 1.

    To say it directly, if “union” IS by definition imputation and justification, then there can be no legal union which is not already justification. Jeff, to his credit, does in this post work with a definition of “union”. He defines “union” as sanctification, ie as that sanctification which he thinks precedes justification, ie, regeneration, definitive sanctification.

    Not all “unionists” define union the same way. I would think the most inclusive definition of “union” for them would be “not justification”. But many of them include the legal in their idea of “union”.
    And when you include the legal in the union, it makes it difficult to say that union is before the legal.
    Adoption, redemption, and the forgiveness of sins seems pretty “forensic” to me.

    Ephesians 1:4–In love He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ

    Ephesians 1:7–in Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins…

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  302. John Thomson:
    Sometimes it’s worth visiting here and providing cognitive dissonance. Sometimes not.
    Confessions are guide and must stand the scrutiny of Scripture. You are right –and the Westminster Confession agrees with you! Confessions can err and many councils, etc. have erre (it says). But there seeps in a traditionalism (which John Frame also talks about–negatively). And when all discussion is resolved by “Thus says the Belgic (or Westminster) Confession” there’s a problem.

    DGH was negatively impacted in his former life (as a Baptist?) with a list of do’s and don’t’s which has led him to his current beliefs and practices. In other words he suffered from a super dose of legalism. I believe this has caused his pendulum-swing to the other side where for me to even suggest that we need to vocalize love for Christ is anathema (because it’s shown by our church attendance, prayer, etc.).

    It’s hard to sort it all out, especially when one notices that serious comments about Scripture are not taken very seriously. When short statements are taken as “drive by’s”. Hmm.

    Carry on. I really like your blog.

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  305. But Jeff, the problem with experimental religion is that it begins to eat at you on those days when you don’t desire God all the time and in every way.

    And just because a Brakel doesn’t distinguish the senses of union doesn’t mean you can’t (especially when you say you do).

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  306. Mark McC: Thanks for the clarifying points. But one major correction:

    He [Jeff] defines “union” as sanctification, ie as that sanctification which he thinks precedes justification, ie, regeneration, definitive sanctification.

    Wait, wait, hold the phone.

    “Union” as I’m using it and as I understand Calvin, Ursinus, and the Hodge boys to be using it, is our connection or relationship to Christ consisting of two parts:

    (1) His federal headship over us, and
    (2) His dwelling in us by the Spirit.

    (1) entails justification immediately.

    And justification has logical priority over sanctification, definitive or otherwise (that was the point you missed that I felt needed urgent correction!). The two occur simultaneously in time.

    Does that make sense?

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  307. DGH: But Jeff, the problem with experimental religion is that it begins to eat at you on those days when you don’t desire God all the time and in every way.

    Um. Experimental religion? Was this was addressed to someone else?

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  308. John T., actually, I don’t have a paper pope but a group of undershepherds appointed by our Lord to oversee me in my walk. We call them elders (not to be confused with the Mormon kind).

    BTW, John, I did not “limit” life in Christ to these practices. But your life in Christ was all ethereal and affectional and could easily be done without external practices. My point was that sometimes actions count. I can tell my wife I love her until the cows come home, but sometimes she may actually want to see such affirmations backed up.

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  310. Eliza, you’re still not quoting Scripture.

    But you must be a Christian counselor, who once went to a church on the East coast where you saw John Frame playing the organ and developed a crush on him. Since then you’ve gobbled up everything he has written, including defenses of biblicism that allow you to think you’re biblical in everything you do.

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  311. Darryl

    ‘your life in Christ was all ethereal and affectional ‘ . Absolute nonsense. Read it again. In any case I never think of love as merely affective but as ‘deed and truth’. Life involves the cognitive, the volitional and the affective. If I stressed the effective I did so because this seems to be in dispute.

    ‘actually, I don’t have a paper pope but a group of undershepherds appointed by our Lord to oversee me in my walk.’

    Yet again Darryl you are merely wriggling. This is not honest discussion it is simply manoeuvering. Dissembling. An attempt to be clever without addressing the point. Again it is unworthy. Just as your comment to Eliza is deeply offensive and vicious with ad hominem tactics.

    Address the issues Darryl.

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  312. John T., my point wasn’t to exclude you from any discussion nor was it to open it up to other points. It was that you are championing unionism and you concede that you are less-than-Reformed. It seems to me that those who do claim Reformed and want to champion unionism might take pause and consider who they have in their ranks. But if you agree that Paul emphasizes the forensic then why do you take issue with those who do as well?

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  313. Eliza, there is a difference between having a high opinion and a high view of ecclesiastical confession (evangelical versus Reformed). There is also a difference between having a high view and an infallible view of them (Reformed versus Roman). You and John T. sound an awful lot like the members of the Committee for the Revision of the Form of Subscription in my (soon to be) former CRC who favor a more evangelical opinion and think the older posture is Romanesque. It seems there is a difference between being evangelically Reformed and confessionally Reformed.

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  314. Jeff,

    Regarding the issue of priority, yes, I agree with you that the priority of justification over sanctification is not temporal but logical. But perhaps it’s also good to try to try to tease out the nature of that logical priority. Let me know if you agree with the following points. Justification is logically prior to sanctification because:

    1. The merit of Christ that is imputed to us in our justification also procures our sanctification. In other words, it’s not as though Christ had to merit our justification and then also had to merit our sanctification. No, the same merit that is imputed to us in justification also procures all saving blessings (including sanctification). Thus, in this sense, justification is the judicial ground of our sanctification.

    2. The main ingredient in our sanctification (reflecting on Fisher), which is love for God, flows from the main ingredient in our justification, which is God’s love and mercy toward us. Another way of saying this is that the faith that lays hold of justifying grace also bears fruit in thankfulness and love to God. So, in this sense, in the Christian life, sanctification flows from justification.

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  315. Jeff,

    Regarding the a Brakel quotes, I would say that extolling union, and utilizing the term “union” only for the subjective realization of it, does not a unionist make. a Brakel, in classic Reformed fashion, has extensive discussions of Christ’s federal headship eternally conceived, historically enacted and subjectively realized. He’s also clear that the whole redemptive enterprise is grounded on the imputed merits of Christ. In other words, he’s anything but confusing about union and its relative importance.

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  316. Jeff,

    One more thing. You said:

    I’m happy all day long to agree with the traditional ordo: justification is logically prior to sanctification. Where we get into trouble is when people start forgetting that logical priority has no bearing on temporal priority.

    But (as has been pointed out already), aren’t the “unionists” also subject to your caveat about temporal priority? In Phillips’ “Seven Assertions,” he said that “Sanctification, like Justification, is caused by union with Christ through faith.” Does this bother you, or do you think that union has a temporal priority to justification and sanctification?

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  317. John T., we have been through this before and you should know that part of the point of Oldlife is the doctrine of the church, what it means to be a member, what it means to be ordained, what it means to be under the oversight of officers appointed by Christ. I hardly see this as dissembling even though you have little time for such official Christianity. Please also restrain your ad hominem attacks. Eliza regularly blows through here with little bumper sticker swipes. It’s cute, but not thoughtful (which is not the same for you, upon whom whom she bestows high fives for doing her heavy lifting).

    Here’s part of what you wrote on the Christian life:

    It means I love all the children of God. It means I hate all sin. It means I abhor evil and cling to what is good. It means I focus on what is good and true. It means I do not love the world nor the things that are in it. It means I live for a world to come. It means that while I grow old outwardly my inner person is renewed for I do not live for a world that is passing away, I am not absorbed by the things that are seen but the things that are unseen. I live and pant for a city whose builder and Maker is God. It means that though I am free I will not use my freedom as a cloak for self indulgence. It means that though married I will live as unmarried, that is, I will not give my first allegiance to father mother wife children etc but to Christ and his Kingdom. It means allowing the word of Christ to dwell in me richly. To feed through this Word on Christ. It means to fellowship with Christ and to cultivate a sense of his presence. It means to draw near to God.

    Sorry John, but those pieties don’t have a lot of specifics about practice. You may want to consider that you are antagonistic and not as sweet as your piety leads you to believe. You regularly demean a variety of Christianity — confessionalism — saying that it is not biblical. Some of us hold these things dear. But when you take your swipes, it’s civil and polite, I guess, because you use the Bible. Have you ever read any Gilbert Tennent?

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  318. Jeff, I affirm WSC 30. I don’t affirm your reading of Calvin and everyone else into it. BTW, you have not exactly affirmed a reading of union that allows effectual calling to control it. And you haven’t said that I’m unbiblical, bless your confessional heart.

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  319. Zrim, and let’s remember that unlike John T., Eliza, if she has not been fibbing, sits under the oversight of elders who have subscribed a Reformed confession.

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  321. The point of my question on the Lord’s Supper (and Baptism could be included to) is to try to figure out how the sacraments fit into this debate. Why do we need the sacraments when we have justification, faith, union and sanctification? In other words, what is the role the sacraments play in this debate? Do they enhance our subjective experience of justification, faith, union and sanctification?

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  322. It seems to me that Christ places high priority on the sacraments for us in order to assure us of our forgiveness. Am I going off on a tangent? Are not the sacraments more comforting than union?

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  325. I’m trying to get past my vision of Eliza swooning while watching John Frame do a fugue. It may take days. Thanks a lot, dgh.

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  327. Darryl, and if Eliza ever senses a call to the ministry then the CRC, which has an evangelical view of the forms and egalitarian view of ordination, would be a better fit than the OPC, which has a confessional view of the forms and elitist view of ordination. But, Eliza, even if you don’t sense that call and if you find the OPC’s confessionalism as stifling as I found the CRC’s evangelicalism, you can have my ordinary seat in the CRC.

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  331. Zrim: It seems to me that those who do claim Reformed and want to champion unionism might take pause and consider who they have in their ranks.

    That’s kinda low, man. Should I call you “antinomian” because you have the justification-priority champion Zane Hodges in your midst?

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  332. David R in re here:

    Let me know if you agree with the following points. Justification is logically prior to sanctification because:

    1. The merit of Christ that is imputed to us in our justification also procures our sanctification.

    Very close. I would say that the righteousness that is imputed to us in justification is the same righteousness that is also infused into us in our sanctification. Is that the same or different from your statement?

    2. The main ingredient in our sanctification (reflecting on Fisher), which is love for God, flows from the main ingredient in our justification, which is God’s love and mercy toward us.

    Yes, definitely. And I would take this point all the way back to Augustine. Though he erred in making caritas a part of justification, he correctly saw that it was the central ingredient in sanctification, and that it flows out of our justification.

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  333. Oops. Sorry about the hyperlink error. A little help, moderator?

    David R.: Regarding the a Brakel quotes, I would say that extolling union, and utilizing the term “union” only for the subjective realization of it, does not a unionist make. a Brakel, in classic Reformed fashion, has extensive discussions of Christ’s federal headship eternally conceived, historically enacted and subjectively realized. He’s also clear that the whole redemptive enterprise is grounded on the imputed merits of Christ. In other words, he’s anything but confusing about union and its relative importance.

    OK, good. I agree, except to note that a Brakel does not utilize union only for the subjective realization of it. He also subsumes federal headship as a part of that union (as does Hodge).

    But in any event, I now ask: Have I ever said anything that made union confusing or cast doubt on its relative importance? No fair dragging in what others might have said about me … but my statements on their own — have they ever suggested that union is only about subjective realizations, or that union is to be understood as personal piety, or any other such thing?

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  334. Darryl

    I don’t consider saying I consider a position is unbiblical is antagonistic, simply a truthful comment. It is not emotive or disparaging language to say you belief someone is wrong. I have no problem with you telling me you consider my view wrong. I simply ask that you show me how from Scripture.

    And of course, in the ordinary way of things, any church member wishes to subject himself to his elders. However, this subjection to elders is a very secondary authority. If the elders and church and catechism have got it wrong then all should be opposed. Had the Reformers not refused the authority of their ‘elders’ the reformation would never have taken place. No, for all believers the only objective authority is God’s Word. We may resist every other authority and remain Christian but we cannot remain Christian and deny the authority of Scripture.

    In any case if you don’t refer to private ‘popes’ then I won’t refer to paper ones.

    I drop into this blog because I do learn and I hope through interaction that we all learn. I apologize if I become too forceful.

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  335. David R: …aren’t the “unionists” also subject to your caveat about temporal priority? In Phillips’ “Seven Assertions,” he said that “Sanctification, like Justification, is caused by union with Christ through faith.” Does this bother you, or do you think that union has a temporal priority to justification and sanctification?

    Yes, I think Phillips is being awkward.

    Union is not a benefit of salvation that fits into the ordo. If you look at Perkins’ Golden Chain, union is not to be found.

    That’s because uniting us to Christ is the way that the Spirit applies the benefits of Christ’s mediation to us (WSC 30 yet again).

    So when we are united to Christ, that process itself (in the forensic aspect) IS our justification. The “uniting us to our federal head” and the “declaring us righteous on the basis of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us” are one and the same act.

    Just as the moving of the arm and the throwing of the ball are the one and the same act, looked at from the perspective of the arm and the ball respectively.

    So no, union doesn’t “cause” justification so much as it includes the process of justifying us. The sole instrument of justification is, of course, faith; and the efficient cause of justification is the Spirit, creating faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ.

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  336. DGH: Jeff, I affirm WSC 30.

    OK, well, the wording of WSC 30 once again with feeling:

    Q. 30. How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
    A. 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.

    Do you affirm, or not affirm, that we are justified by being united to Christ, which occurs in our effectual calling?

    DGH: I don’t affirm your reading of Calvin and everyone else into it.

    So whom do you believe did the writers of WSC 30 have in mind when they wrote this? Calvin’s theology informs a heckuva lot of the theology of the Standards. Why is it bad procedure to look to him for background and clarification?

    DGH: BTW, you have not exactly affirmed a reading of union that allows effectual calling to control it.

    Well, just ask. Our union is accomplished in our effectual calling. Done.

    DGH: And you haven’t said that I’m unbiblical, bless your confessional heart.

    🙂 Good thing I see a certain amount of daylight between the Confession and the Scripture, then, a la WCoF 31.3. But when in Escondido, do as the Escondidans.

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  337. John Y, interesting question about communion and Ursinus. I believe that he is trying to take on transubstantiation.

    And his point in particular is that we don’t need the body of Christ to be physically present down here on earth, in order to apprehend him by faith and be justified — speaking mainly against the trans- crowd.

    At the same time, he does view consubstantiation as a “schism.”

    That’s working from memory; I’ll check the source tonight. But I wanted to not ignore you. 🙂

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  339. John T., I don’t mind your disagreement. But you should notice that sometimes it has a sanctity attached to it that fails to recognize its own views are contested. But you see, this is my problem with your (what I call) pietism. Such a view of the Christian life as one of triumph over sin, such optimism, cannot ever seem to account for the sin that lingers, and the offense that is sometimes caused.

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  340. Jeff, I affirm that the Holy Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and that effectual calling is the work of God that produces faith and that unites us to Christ. Also affirm that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us and receive by faith alone (not by union-faith, or faith-union).

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  341. DGH says:

    Jeff, I affirm that the Holy Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and that effectual calling is the work of God that produces faith and that unites us to Christ. Also affirm that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us and receive by faith alone (not by union-faith, or faith-union).

    OK, now I like that… say it loud and say it proud (as boasting in the Lord) 😉

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  342. John T., if you take issue with those who deny or demean the experiential then I am stymied as to what your beef is with those who want to follow Paul’s lead in making justification a priority. To want the experiential put into its proper place isn’t to deny or demean it. It’s simply the result of wanting the nature of things to be able to run their course.

    When I refer to my WIFE by my very language I am prioritizing the legal nature of our RELATIONSHIP, not denying or demeaning our relationship. I don’t think the same can be said when I refer to her as the-woman-with-whom-I-enjoy-intimacy-and-make-my-life. Is she the latter? Most assuredly, but only because she is my wife first. Not to sound dismissive, but why is this so hard, and why does it earn the reputation of denying or demeaning a relationship?

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  343. Jeff, I think you’re being a little wooden. Zane isn’t here besmirching Reformed piety and practice or talking about faith obeying. If he were I’d try to do what I could to distinguish Reformed JP from un-Reformed JP. So far, unless I missed it, I haven’t seen any Reformed unionists trying to do the same with un-Reformed unionism.

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  344. Jeff wrote: “I would say that the righteousness that is imputed to us in justification is the same righteousness that is also infused into us in our sanctification.” I

    Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but what specific Scriptures teach this identity? Maybe that’s unfair, since the Bible doesn’t use the words “infused” or “imparted”. But I am asking: where does the Bible use the word “righteousness” in such a way that we should know that it means infused habits, imparted energies or “inside you” righteousness? (Horton and McCormack have helpfully begun this discussion.)

    Then, after you’ve done this (shown us “infusion” connected to righteousness), then you can show us where that righteousness IS ALSO AT THE SAME TIME IMPARTED. I think it’s an impossible task, unless you beg the question by assuming: if imputed, then also infused. But even if that were the case, then how could you from Scripture show any distinction between that righteousness which is “sanctification” and that righteousness which justifies? How could you then avoid the path to Osiander?

    But the word “sanctification” does appear in Scripture. Start in I Cor 1:30. Who is the one who made Christ our righteousness?

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  345. Zrim

    I don’t believe I did besmirch reformed piety but I have often read what seems to be called evangelical pietism ridiculed on the blog. Be that as it may, I will bow out of this discussion. It seems I can contribute nothing further at this point that may be of use.

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  347. Darryl:So Don, you’re saying OT believers were not united to Christ? But the confession speaks of those believers as possessing the benefits of redemption purchased by Christ. How could they obtain those benefits apart from union? I don’t dispute that NT believers have the Spirit in ways that OT saints did not. But you really should be careful about linking the Spirit entirely to the resurrection. Or are you suggesting that union has an already-not-yet dimension?

    No. I specifically said “As the WCF and Scripture maintain, it is through the operation of the Spirit joining us to Christ by faith for both.”

    Yes. I am suggesting that union has an already-not-yet dimension, but only in the experiential sense, not the mystical sense. This seems to be exactly what Calvin is saying, and that the experiential not yet ends when we receive our resurrected bodies.

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  348. Zrim: So far, unless I missed it, I haven’t seen any Reformed unionists trying to do the same with un-Reformed unionism.

    So ya want I should talk twice as much? Sheesh, I already feel like I say more than is proper.

    Suffice it to say that for me, silence is not agreement. But conversation is an attempt to procure one.

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  349. Mark McC: Jeff wrote: “I would say that the righteousness that is imputed to us in justification is the same righteousness that is also infused into us in our sanctification.” I

    Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but what specific Scriptures teach this identity? Maybe that’s unfair, since the Bible doesn’t use the words “infused” or “imparted”. But I am asking: where does the Bible use the word “righteousness” in such a way that we should know that it means infused habits, imparted energies or “inside you” righteousness? (Horton and McCormack have helpfully begun this discussion.)

    The language of infused righteousness comes out of the WLC Qn #77.

    If you want to then press further as to where Scripture makes distinctions between righteousness that is imputed and righteousness that is infused, I would point to Rom 5 and Rom 8 respectively.

    If you want to then press further and wonder why I say that it is the *same* righteousness that is imputed in justification, but infused in sanctification, then I would say that it is the one righteousness of Christ, given to us in two different ways. I would say that Rom 6 links those two together.

    Perhaps David R can also chip in, since he spoke of “merit” procuring our justification and sanctification both.

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  351. Jeff, fair enough that silence is not agreement. But instead of coming to agreement, often times conversation is really more about sorting out views, establishing disagreements and being comfortable with them. This conversation tends to churn, and maybe part of that owes to thinking that coming to agreement is the point, as well as a discomfort with disagreement. Another is an allergy against labels as forms of name-calling instead of ways to stake out where everyone is coming from.

    Be that as it may, no, my point wasn’t to get you to speak more. It was simply to suggest that when it comes to the material principle of the Reformation it’s worth contemplating caution for those who confess the Reformed faith teaming up with those who don’t. To be honest, some of this feels like the difference between “Reformed and always reforming” and “always reforming.”

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  352. DGH: Jeff, I affirm that the Holy Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and that effectual calling is the work of God that produces faith and that unites us to Christ.

    Two objections immediately surface.

    (1) Your reading is grammatically challenged.

    The form of WSC 30 is

    Q: How does X happen?

    A: X happens by A, and thereby B in C.

    Just as a matter of grammar, the structure is clear enough: A happens, leading to B in C.

    Implied by the question is that B either is OR obviously leads to X. (else, the question hasn’t been answered)

    So the A, B, and C are the explanation of how X happens.

    But your read would have us take it as

    Q: How does X happen?

    DGH’s A: X happens by A, and C does A and B, and A does X.

    Which makes B — uniting us to Christ — a complete orphan in the sentence. The mention of B is a spurious aside.

    So the grammatical form doesn’t make sense in your reading, regardless of the content of X and A, B, and C.

    (2) What is the historical Reformed lineage of your reading?

    I struggle to remember anyone, anyone at all, who reads WSC 30 in this way or even speaks of union more generally in this way. Who are your sources?

    You’ve already criticized me for going to Calvin to understand WSC 30 (!). And you clearly disagree with Fisher. Recall his comments on WSC 30:

    Q. 1. What is the special work of the Spirit in the application of redemption?
    A. It is the uniting us to Christ, Rom. 8:9, 11.
    Q. 2. Can we have no share in the redemption purchased by Christ, without union
    to his person?
    A. No; because all purchased blessings are lodged in his person, John 3:35, and
    go along with it, 1 John 5:12.
    …Q. 36. Whether is it sinners or saints, that are united to Christ?
    A. In the very moment of the union, sinners are made saints, 1 Cor. 6:11.
    …
    Q. 38. What are believers entitled to by their union with Christ?
    A. To himself, and all the blessings of his purchase, 1 Cor. 3:22, 23.
    Q. 39. When does the Spirit work faith in us, and thereby unite us to Christ?
    A. He does it in our effectual calling, 1 Cor. 1:9.40

    — Fisher’s Catechism

    It’s very clear that Fisher takes the “X happens by A, leading to B in C, and B is the way in which X happens” read.

    So you don’t like Calvin here, or Fisher. It’s fairly safe to say that you also disagree with Ursinus on union, and a Brakel. Where then are you getting your reading? Or is an ab initio reading of the Catechism?

    Witsius must drive you nuts:

    But the mutual union, (which, on the part of an elect person, is likewise active and operative), whereby the soul draws near to Christ, joins itself to him, applies, and in a becoming and proper manner closes with him without any distraction, is made by faith only. And this is followed in order by the other benefits of the covenant of grace, justification, peace, adoption, sealing, perseverance, etc.

    — Conciliatory Animadversions Ch 5.

    No distinction in union, he implies experiential union, and he makes union logically prior to everything. Poor guy; he must have a low view of justification.

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  353. Jeff, the challenges go both ways. First, what kind of union are Fisher and Witsius talking about? You keep telling me that you affirm the federal and experiential distinctions, but then the quotations you supply don’t indicate a distinct use of union. Maybe the authors didn’t make it. Even so, what’s up with that.

    As for grammar, your favorite part of the Shorter Catechism is not without its challenges:

    Q. 29. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?
    A. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.

    Q. 30. How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
    A. 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.

    Q. 31. What is effectual calling?
    A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

    Looking at the order here, in 30 its faith, then union, then effectual calling. And then in 31 effectual calling — no mention of union directly — results in embracing Christ, which for unionists could be read as union. So between 30 and 31 we have this order: faith, union, effectual calling, union. Meanwhile, the entire section is governed by effectual calling since 32 asks about the benefits of those not united to Christ but effectually called.

    Last, saying we are justified by union is very, very sloppy and confusion. There was an important reason for saying that justification is by faith alone. It was to draw a contrast with works and meriting salvation. Affirming justification by union, or this odd phrase faith-union, carries none of the precision or meaning that was and still is necessary.

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  354. DGH, 30 does not say faith, then union, then effectual calling. It says faith, thereby union in effectual calling.

    31 simply restates this. Effectual calling IS the enablement to embrace Christ (which is indeed union).

    You want to flatten all the words to “then”, which is implausible.

    DGH: First, what kind of union are Fisher and Witsius talking about? You keep telling me that you affirm the federal and experiential distinctions, but then the quotations you supply don’t indicate a distinct use of union. Maybe the authors didn’t make it. Even so, what’s up with that.

    The “up” is, as I explained before, that early Reformers distinguished the benefits of union into two classes — forensic and transformative, or to use Calvin’s terms, justification and regeneration. They then used the term “union” to encompass two things: imputation and the indwelling Spirit.

    And they weren’t confused by it, either.

    DGH: Last, saying we are justified by union is very, very sloppy and confusion.

    Then I’d say you have a problem with the entire 16th and 17th centuries of Reformed theology, as well later writers.

    Charles Hodge is blunt: “Justification is the third effect of union.”

    DGH: Affirming justification by union, or this odd phrase faith-union, carries none of the precision or meaning that was and still is necessary.

    “faith-union”? Your phrase, not mine.

    But “justification comes by being united to Christ” is quite precise. It refers to the fact that we are justified by virtue of Christ’s federal headship over us.

    If one absolutely needs clarification, one could say “justification comes by being federally united to Christ.”

    But to insist that “federally always has to be said, otherwise one is confusing”, is unnecessarily obtuse. Do you really think everyone who fails to say “federally” is unable to recall imputation?

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  355. Jeff, faith-union is not my word. It is a unionist phrase.

    WSC 30 does mention faith before union, that faith unites. So maybe faith should be the controlling device. Let’s see, that would also work for the doctrine of justification. But then there it goes when you say justification teaches union, even though WSC 33 doesn’t mention union AT ALL.

    As for the reformers on the dual aspects of union, Jeff, you’re not following them because I have heard you at times talk about the decretal, federal, and mystical. Now we have five senses? Transformative and forensic.

    I need a play book.

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  356. I had asked Jeff about why he had not yet reformed from using the word “infusion” and the idea of “infused righteousness”.

    Jeff answered: “if you want to then press further as to where Scripture makes distinctions between righteousness that is imputed and righteousness that is infused, I would point to Rom 5 and Rom 8 respectively.”

    mark: I may be thick and stubborn, but I want to see the word “righteousness” in either of those two chapters where it has the meaning of “infusion”. I am not asking to see the word “infusion”. I know it’s not there. But I want you to show me some inner righteousness, which is not legal and imputed. Many read Romans 6 with the assumption that it says that the Holy Spirit (or the church) unites us to Christ on the inside. The chapter does not say that, and we should not read it with that assumption.

    And John T should stop assuming that when the Bible says “we died with”, that this means something other than “Christ died for”. “We died” means that Christ’s death for us (instead of us), and that His death is counted by God as our death. That’s the meaning of Romans 6, II Cor 5:15. That’s why Romans 8:4 says “fulfilled in us”.

    It’s not enough to give a formal “I don’t deny that it also means the legal also”, if you then consistently look at texts and say “more than the forensic”, especially when the texts don’t mean anything other than the forensic. The legal death has effective inner consequences, but the consequences are not to be equated with the death or the righteousness.

    Romans 6:20,21–“when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed. The end of those thing is death”

    It is legal union with the death which has justified the elect and set them free. Before their justification, they may have already been ashamed of immorality. But they were not ashamed of their piety, their self-righteousness, or of their attempts to cooperate in the building of their own righteousness in attempts to gain assurance by a pattern of obedience to imperative. Now they count all that trash (Philippians 3).

    We agree that Christ’s righteousness is the merit of His work. Christians are “servants of righteousness”. But it has not been demonstrated that “the righteousness” is both imputed and infused.

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  357. Jeff (responding to your post of 10:00 AM yesterday),

    Me: Let me know if you agree with the following points. Justification is logically prior to sanctification because:

    1. The merit of Christ that is imputed to us in our justification also procures our sanctification.

    You: Very close. I would say that the righteousness that is imputed to us in justification is the same righteousness that is also infused into us in our sanctification. Is that the same or different from your statement?

    No, I would say that’s significantly different. The righteousness that’s imputed to us in justification is what Christ accomplished as the second Adam, that is, His successful completion of His covenant probation, by which he merited entitlement to heaven on behalf of His people according to the terms of the pactum salutis. So that the righteousness we possess by way of imputation is something we could never possess in any other way, as Christ’s accomplishment was unique. And this imputed righteousness is the judicial foundation of all saving blessings we receive, including sanctification. Whereas the righteousness of sanctification (as you know) involves the renewal of our natures by the Holy Spirit. This righteousness is our own inherent, Spirit-empowered, righteousness, which, though it is a conforming of us to the image of Christ, nonetheless never can comes close to replicating the “one act of obedience” by which our salvation was purchased. My take, fwiw.

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  358. Mark McC: I can’t tell if you don’t like the word “righteousness” or the word “infused.” I would guess the latter.

    So if so, then do you also object to WLC 77?

    Question 77: Wherein do justification and sanctification differ?

    Answer: Although sanctification be inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ, in that God in justification imputes the righteousness of Christ;in sanctification his Spirit infuses grace, and enables to the exercise thereof; in the former, sin is pardoned; in the other, it is subdued:the one does equally free all believers from the revenging wrath of God, and that perfectly in this life, that they never fall into condemnation; the other is neither equal in all, nor in this life perfect in any, but growing up to perfection.

    If you could, would you explain your discomfort with “infused” more thoroughly?

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  359. David R: First, I agree with you that “this imputed righteousness is the judicial foundation of all saving blessings we receive, including sanctification. ”

    Second, I also agree that our righteousness in sanctification “nonetheless never can comes close to replicating the “one act of obedience” by which our salvation was purchased.”

    Third:

    The reason I said that the righteousness of justification and sanctification were the *same* was not because they are same in quantity, but that the come from the same person: Christ. That is, His love for God and neighbor that caused Him to keep the law perfectly, is the same love for God and neighbor that the Spirit gives to us, “albeit imperfectly in this life.”

    So same in quality, not quantity or perfection, is what I was trying to say.

    Fourth: This righteousness is our own inherent, Spirit-empowered, righteousness

    I’m not comfortable with the word “inherent.” It seems to suggest that the righteousness of sanctification is a quality that we possess that modifies the Adamic nature.

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  360. Mark McC: I noticed in your comments that you merged me and John T into one. I should say that I am not “aligned” with John T and do not endorse his positions as a general rule (though perhaps we coincide on specific points).

    I’m sure he would say the same about me.

    So for instance, I agree with you (and seemingly against him) that “It is legal union with the death which has justified the elect and set them free.”

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  361. DGH: Jeff, faith-union is not my word. It is a unionist phrase.

    Fair ’nuff. I noticed it just now in David R’s citation of Gaffin.

    Anyways, let’s take that phrase off the table, since neither of us uses it.

    DGH: WSC 30 does mention faith before union, that faith unites. So maybe faith should be the controlling device.

    YES! Progress.

    Let’s see, that would also work for the doctrine of justification.

    Yes, Yes! Indeed. And we can see why: faith unites us to Christ, so that we are reckoned in him and therefore righteous.

    But then there it goes when you say justification teaches union, even though WSC 33 doesn’t mention union AT ALL.

    Aww. “Justification teaches union”?! What does that even mean, and when did I say it? We were doing so well there for a second.

    But WLC 69 certainly mentions union, and says that our justification manifests our union. So there’s that.

    But about WSC 33: …only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us

    There’s the union. Imputation is the direct result of our federal union with Christ, his headship over us. This isn’t me saying this, this is Ursinus and Hodge &c.

    DGH: As for the reformers on the dual aspects of union, Jeff, you’re not following them because I have heard you at times talk about the decretal, federal, and mystical.

    Let’s get this straight. You hammer me for not differentiating union. So, as a concession, I agree to differentiate union so as to communicate more clearly with you. Then you come back and tell me that I’m not following the reformers because I’m differentiating union.

    That’s uncool.

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  362. Jeff, the language of justification by faith alone and the imputed righteousness of Christ is the technical language of the Reformation. You may not like it. But it was there and inspired all sorts of debates and defenses. And here you come with union and — swoosh — the technical language is all subsumed in a word that still needs further differentiation. What I sense is that unionists don’t respect the technical language, and worse, don’t understand the import of holding on to those terms.

    If you want to use union to augment or supplement justification, fine. Really. But it is the reading of union into every jot and tittle of the ordo, and in the process vacating the technical language that had informed the ordo that I see as a real problem. So while I don’t think you are anti-Lutheran or anti-forensic as some unionists come across, I see you as aiding and abetting a confusing concept that undermines the reasons for stating justification a certain way and for recognizing what is at stake in those statements..

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  363. Jeff,

    The reason I said that the righteousness of justification and sanctification were the *same* was not because they are same in quantity, but that the come from the same person: Christ. That is, His love for God and neighbor that caused Him to keep the law perfectly, is the same love for God and neighbor that the Spirit gives to us, “albeit imperfectly in this life.”

    Okay, your second sentence clears things up (a little).

    I’m not comfortable with the word “inherent.” It seems to suggest that the righteousness of sanctification is a quality that we possess that modifies the Adamic nature.

    I think the word is often used to contrast with with “imputed,” for example, as in Shaw’s commentary:

    Antinomians maintain, that believers are sanctified only by the holiness of Christ being imputed to them, and that there is no inherent holiness infused into them, nor required of them. This is a great and dangerous error; and, in opposition to it, our Confession asserts, that believers are really and personally sanctified.

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  364. Jeff, when I hear you push back on the point that justification is by faith alone by suggesting (on behalf of all of 16th and 17th Reformed theology) that justification is by union, coupled with David R.’s point in the other thread that “’union with the exalted Christ by Spirit-created faith’ sure sounds pretty experiential,” I can’t help but hear the modern evangelical who tells me that we are saved by having a personal relationship with Jesus. This over against Reformation Christianity’s claim that we are saved by faith alone. One says that the instrument is an experiential union, the other says it’s a legal union (obtained by faith). But like Darryl suggests, I don’t think you mean to diminish the forensic but it sure does seem to at least give cover to confusion.

    So I wonder where you think your outlook as one who confesses the Reformed tradition differs from modern evangelicalism which isn’t necessarily anti-faith but nevertheless speaks overwhelmingly in tones of experience rather than in categories of faith. Because from where I sit, if you’re right, then I’m not sure what stake a modern evangelical has in coming to the Reformation. Sure sounds like it’s essentially the same deal, with perhaps less pietism attached.

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  365. Jeff: “I struggle to remember anyone, anyone at all, who reads WSC 30 in this way or even speaks of union more generally in this way. Who are your sources?”

    Here’s how A.A. Hodge read WSC 33:

    “In the application of redemption to the individual sinner, which, in the order nature, precedes and conditions the other–justification or regeneration”

    “This question is obviously one as to order, not of time, but of cause and effect. All admit (1) That the satisfaction and merit of Christ are the necessary precondition of regeneration and faith as directly as of justification; (2) That regeneration and justification are both gracious acts of God; (3) That they take place at the same moment of time. The only question is, what is the true order of causation? Is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us that we may believe, or is it imputed to us because we believe? Is justification an analytic judgment, to the effect that this man, though a sinner, yet being a believer, is justified? Or is it a synthetic judgment, to the effect that this sinner is justified for Christ’s sake? Our catechism suggests the latter by the order of its phrases. God justifies us, ‘only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us and received by faith alone.’ The same seems to be included in the very act of justifying faith itself, which is the trustful recognition and embrace of Christ, who had previously ‘loved me, and given himself for me‘ (Gal 2:20).

    So, on Hodge the Younger’s reading, justification causes faith, and faith is the “thereby” of union.

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  366. DGH: Jeff, the language of justification by faith alone and the imputed righteousness of Christ is the technical language of the Reformation. You may not like it.

    No, actually, I quite like it.

    DGH: But it was there and inspired all sorts of debates and defenses. And here you come with union and — swoosh — the technical language is all subsumed in a word that still needs further differentiation.

    If I hadn’t read all of those sources cited previously, I might think that union was something brand new.

    But … it isn’t.

    DGH: If you want to use union to augment or supplement justification, fine.

    I want to use union to emphasize that we are justified because Christ is our federal head.

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  367. Zrim: Jeff, when I hear you push back on the point that justification is by faith alone by suggesting (on behalf of all of 16th and 17th Reformed theology) that justification is by union…

    Well, there’s the problem. The claim that justification happens by uniting us to Christ is not a pushback against the point that justification is by faith alone.

    That’s abundantly clear when you read 16th and 17th century theologians, who freely say *both* that justification is by faith alone, and also that God justifies us by uniting us to Christ.

    What’s tripping you up here is a faulty understanding of union as something experiential.

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  368. Jeff, look also at how WCF Chapter 6 describes sin and the punishment for sin: “Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, does in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.”

    Until the sinner has obtained pardon for sin, he is not running to embrace or be united to Christ. Remember that, as mediator between God and man, Christ has been appointed judge of the world. Being united to the righteous judge of men and angels before obtaining pardon doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. It sounds like condemnation, wrath, death, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and all that stuff.

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  369. Jeff,

    I know you gave me a lengthy response somewhere way back, but I was over at GB hashing out some OT discussions, when I came across something interesting by Bruce Waltke, all taken from An Old Testament Theology: An Exegetical, Canonical, and Thematic Approach:

    …the New Testament redefines Land in three ways, first spiritually as a reference to Christ’s person; second, transcendentally, as a reference to heavenly Jerusalem; ans third, eschatologically, as a reference to the New Jerusalem after Christ’s second coming. By “redefine” we mean that whereas “Land: in the Old Testament refers to Israel’s life in Canaan, in the New Testament “Land” is transmuted to refer to life in Christ. In other words, the New Testament skins like a banana the Old Testament references to the Land as real estate in order to expose its spiritual food. Christian theologians since Augustine have contended that “the New is the Old Concealed, and the Old is in the New revealed.” As for Land, I contend that the Old Testament conceals and the New reveals that Canaan has the hidden manna of three eternal, spiritual truths in the life of God’s elect in Christ. In addition, I contend that the Land in the Old Testament is a type of the Christian life in Christ. (p.560)

    And,

    The Land as “Christified”

    The New Testament replaces Israel’s life in the Sworn Land (c.f. Exod. 40:35; 1 Kings 8:11; Pss. 9:11, 76:2, 87:3, 132:13) with the church’s eternal life by baptism into Jesus Christ. The land of Canaan, though impersonal, had a sacramental value, for in the Land, sanctified by God’s unique presence, Israel had experienced her unique relationship with God. That sacramental value is now experienced even more richly in our being in Christ. Paul’s “in Christ” with its “local” sense – so central in his theology – was for him the massive, Christologized fulfillment of the land promise…

    Whereas old Israel found God’s unique presence and her inheritance in the Land of Canaan, the New Israel finds God’s unique presence in Jesus Christ and her eternal inheritance in her attachment to him. Paul’s key term “in Christ” represents Paul’s understanding of the Old Testament promises. Holewerda comments –

    For Paul all the Old Testament promises are now fulfilled and have become personalized in Christ. Territory is insignificant and place does not matter. All that is significant is “in Christ”. Thus it is argued, the promises have been “de-territorialized”… Paul’s interpretation of the promise is “a-territorial” because the promises have been “personalized” and “universalized in Christ. W.D. Davies coins the term “Christified” for this new attachment: “The land has been for him [Paul] “Christified.” It is not the land promised… that became his [Paul’s] “inheritence”, but the Living Lord in whom was a new creation(pp. 576, 78)

    And finally:

    The Old Testament promises regarding the Land must be interpreted in light of the cannon’s own redefinition of the correlative terms pertaining to the Land. In other words, interpreting the Old Testament promises and prophecies about the Land with reference to life in Christ is not allegorizing a reluctant Old Testament text but showing how the New Testament reveals doctrines regarding the Land that the Old Testament conceals. Accordingly, the promise that Israel will inherit a land flowing with milk and honey becomes a metaphor for the milk and honey of life in Christ, a participation in heaven itself and in a world that is beyond what saints could imagine or think.

    Isaiah and Micah predict that Mount Zion will be exalted above all mountains and all the nations will flow to it. This prophecy should be redefined within it’s canonical context as a reference to the heavenly Jerusalem and/or to its being lowered to the new earth in the eschaton. let the church rejoice that myriads from all over the world make their pilgrimage to heavenly Mount Zion to feed upon the hidden manna of Jesus Christ. (pp. 586-87)

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  370. Jeff (continued from my Waltke excerpts):

    I post all of this to reiterate a point I tried to make before with you. While there is certainly something to the mystical/relational union we have with Christ, much of the union language, especially in Ephesians isn’t primarily mystical/relational (but its still there), it is spatial/locative. By this, I mean Paul is picking up on, and redefining the Land promises to Israel in the Old Testament, and transferring that over to the church’s and believer’s life “in Christ”. This is why I have been stomping my feet and waiving my hands from the back row of class and saying “Yeah, but what about this?!!”

    Even the aspects of union expressed in the Sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper have more to do with the culmination and fulfillment of the enjoyment of the sacramental union Israel had with God in the Promised Land. It is an aspect of our salvation for sure. This is present in the Old Testament where the Hebrew verb ysh (to save), has a semantic value of to “make room for” or to “make a place for” especially the alien or the castaway. Union has much to do with the blessings and promises once we are “in Christ”, but like Israel before us, there was a initiation of the covenant with blood (Exodus 12 – Passover and again in Ex 24 when the covenant was ratified). There is no union without the shedding of blood and initiation into the covenant, that is why Justification is given priority among some of us in the Reformed camp. We don’t get to all of the amazing promises of union, and the blessings of life in Christ, unless we first have been justified.

    In this sense justification is the theological nexus into union, it is the narrow gate to into which the expansive blessings and the God’s work of union takes place. In this sense, I think that while we can’t grant qualitative priority of justification over union, because they all end up in the same state of blessing and fellowship with God, we must grant sequential priority to justification, as this is our grounds to enter life in Christ, and our basis of assurance as we fight through the implications of having two natures on this side of heaven.

    It is an enormous exegetical oversight to draw conclusions about union without first understanding its intimate relation to the Land promises of the OT. This is the basis of our eternal inheritence in Christ, and where much of the Pauline language focuses in Ephesians, that is why I said that you can’t draw a valid conclusion about the contentions of the JP-ers based on arguments out of Ephesians, simply because your arguments (and John T’s) haven’t properly accounted for a canonical understanding of union.

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  371. Hi RL,

    Appreciate your cool reason as always.

    I’m having trouble making sense of the passage you provided. Partly, I lack context (not having his commentary on WSC at hand). And partly, the first scan seems to me to prove the opposite of your point.

    It seems like the parallel structure in the passage you cited would go

    righteousness is imputed so that we may believe analytic
    righteousness imputed because we believe synthetic.

    And then he affirms the latter — that is, righteousness is imputed because we believe.

    But that’s the opposite of the point you were making, right?

    So help me out.

    If it helps, when Hodge gets to Justification in his Commentary on the Confession, he says this:

    That the essential and sole condition upon which this imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer proceeds is that he exercise faith in or on Christ as his righteousness or ground of acceptance and justification. Faith is here called the “condition” of justification because it is an essential requisite and necessary instrument whereby the soul … appropriates the righteousness of Christ.

    — AA Hodge, Commentary on the Westminster Confession, ch. IX (p. 252).

    Here it definitely seems that faith is the cause, or instrument, of justification.

    —

    But explain the larger point to me. If faith is the alone instrument of justification (as you certainly hold), then how could justification cause faith? What would that mean?

    I can see how election could be the first cause of faith. I can see how the atonement is an object of faith. But I can’t see how justification could cause the very instrument by which it comes to be. That would seem to require that we are justified before we believe and are thereby justified.

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  373. Thanks Jeff, I think we can probably stop the endlessly oscillating discussions on union if we do a better job of defining it in it’s canonical context. Maybe this is the “missing link” in these debates, and could bridge the gap from the reasonable contentions of union advocates and the insistence if JP-ers that justification be granted sequential-temporal priority to union. Maybe I am hoping for too much here. I really do appreciate the work done to advocate a fuller and more biblical understanding of union, but not at the expense of tearing open roads already paved.

    I do look forward to more interaction with you along these lines.

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  374. The passage is from an 1878 article titled The Ordo Salutis.

    The two options immediately preceding his affirmation of the latter are these:

    Former:“Is justification an analytic judgment, to the effect that this man, though a sinner, yet being a believer, is justified?”

    Latter:“Or is it a synthetic judgment, to the effect that this sinner is justified for Christ’s sake?”

    A clearer passage (which I was hoping not to have to type) makes this clear:

    “The two principles which give character to Protestant soteriology, and distinguish it genetically from Romish soteriology on the one hand, and from that of the Socinians and Rationalists on the other are:”

    “(1) The clear distinction emphasized between the change of relation to the law, signalized by the word justification; and the real subjective change of personal character, signalized by the words regeneration and sanctification…[he goes on to elaborate the distinction justification is forensic act of God and sanctification is subjective transformation of the believer’s moral character]”

    (2) “The second characteristic mark of Protestant soteriology is the principle that the change in relation to the law signalized by the tern justification, involving remission of penalty and restoration to favor, necessarily precedes and renders possible the real moral change of character signalized by the terms regeneration and sanctification. The continuance of judicial condemnation excludes the existence of grace in the heart. Remission of punishment must be preceded by remission of guilt, and must itself precede the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart.”

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  375. Jeff:

    I can no more make Christ my federal head through faith than I can make him my creator through faith. Christ is made my federal head by appointment, by the decree. It’s proclaimed to me through the Gospel. I believe it because he has sent his Spirit. I don’t make his headship a reality through faith. I simply say “Amen”!

    Further, as I understand your conception the consequence of faith is union with Christ through the Spirit and, among the several consequences of this union, is that the believer is justified. How then do you make sense of the unambiguous teaching that “God justifies the ungodly.” Do you maintain that a faithful believer who has been both reborn through the power of the Spirit and united to the Resurrected Son of God is ungodly?!?! How’s that work?

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  376. Jeff,

    If faith is the alone instrument of justification (as you certainly hold), then how could justification cause faith? What would that mean?

    I can see how election could be the first cause of faith. I can see how the atonement is an object of faith. But I can’t see how justification could cause the very instrument by which it comes to be.

    Correct me if my memory fails, but earlier, didn’t you affirm what Berkof says here?

    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 [including the gift of faith!] lies in the fact that the righteousness of Christ is freely imputed to us.

    And if you do affirm this, then wouldn’t you also have to concede that there is a sense in which justification causes faith?

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  377. jeff: The reason I said that the righteousness of justification and sanctification were the *same* was not because they are same in quantity, but that they come from the same person: Christ.

    mark: That is confusing. Justification and sanctification are not the same, even though both come from Christ. Another confusion is that the Bible has more than one sense of “sanctification”. There is sanctification by the blood (Hebrews 10:10-14). There is Sanctification by the Holy Spirit unto belief in the truth of the gospel.(II Thess 2:13) And then there is “sanctification” defined in the Confession as growth in the Christian life (“more and more”) which possibly has something to do with “infusion”.

    jeff: So same in quality, not quantity or perfection, is what I was trying to say.

    mark: The source of both is one righteousness. There are not two different kinds of righteousness (at least, that has not been demonstrated), therefore it makes no sense to say that “they” are the same in quality.

    jeff: This righteousness is our own inherent, Spirit-empowered, righteousness
    I’m not comfortable with the word “inherent.” It seems to suggest that the righteousness of sanctification is a quality that we possess that modifies the Adamic nature.

    mark: I am glad you are uncomfortable with that, Jeff. I hope it makes you locate the texts which speak of this other kind of righteousness, which is not imputed, but which is of the same quality.

    Jeff also wrote: noticed in your comments that you merged me and John T into one. I should say that I am not “aligned” with John T and do not endorse his positions as a general rule (though perhaps we coincide on specific points). I’m sure he would say the same about me.
    So for instance, I agree with you (and seemingly against him) that “It is legal union with the death which has justified the elect and set them free.”

    mark: I sincerely apologize about doing that. I do see the differences. I even thought about that when I was rushing in that post. I didn’t have much time, and I didn’t want to do more posts, and so I took a shortcut. I am sorry. I will try not to do it again. I think you know that “we died” and “died with” mean federal substitution….

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  379. David R: I think there are two reasons that your gloss in brackets is probably not in view in Berkhof. (Or if I mistype his name badly enough, Berfkhfof).

    First, you’ll notice that starting at para B, Berkhof limits the scope of the discussion to subjective union only: “Most generally, however, it [the term mystical union] denotes only the crowning aspect of that union, namely, its subjective realization by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and it is this aspect of it that is naturally in the foreground in soteriology. All that is said in the rest of this chapter bears on this subjective union.”

    So the graces in view in the passage you cite, coming later, are most likely to be the graces experienced in the subjective union, post-justification in logical sequence.

    Second, if we try to make Berkhof’s “graces” refer to all saving graces, even justifying faith, then an alarming side-effect appears.

    For at the head of that chapter, Berkhof says “Even the very first blessing of the saving grace of God which we receive already presupposes a union with the Person of the Mediator.” So your read, if correct, would have union prior to faith. Yikes.

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  380. RL, the (2) in your passage shows clearly a logical priority of justification to sanctification, but does not demonstrate the priority of justification to faith.

    You then say: Further, as I understand your conception the consequence of faith is union with Christ through the Spirit and, among the several consequences of this union, is that the believer is justified.

    Yes. What it means to be united to Christ, in the forensic sense, is imputation: His righteousness given freely to the sinner by faith alone.

    RL: How then do you make sense of the unambiguous teaching that “God justifies the ungodly.” Do you maintain that a faithful believer who has been both reborn through the power of the Spirit and united to the Resurrected Son of God is ungodly?!?! How’s that work?

    No, the faith is what unites is what justifies. Or as Calvin says,

    On the contrary, a man will be justified by faith when, excluded from the righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous. Thus we simply interpret justification, as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as if we were righteous; and we say that this justification consists in the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ (see sec. 21 and 23).

    — Calv Inst 3.11.2

    So I put it back to you: how can we be clothed in the righteousness of Christ unless we are viewed in him?

    The mistake is to think of a temporal order: FIRST we believe, THEN we are united, THEN (finally) we are justified. That’s not it.

    We believe, which unites us to Christ, which includes our justification.

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  381. Jed, it seems like the insights you derive from the Land-Christ connection make much more sense as applied to adoption, not union.

    Take Gal 3 – 4, which is quintessentially “history of redemption” fodder.

    The thing needed to become a Son of Abraham (= a son of God) is justification. How then do we receive justification? Note the phrases at the end of ch. 3:

    * in Christ, we are children of God through faith.
    * those who have been baptized into Christ have *clothed themselves with Christ*
    * If you belong to Christ, Then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.

    There is clearly a two-step process: First, we require justification; then, we are received as children of God (that is, adopted — ch. 4). But whence the justification? By being clothed with Christ.

    And here indeed is the great mystery of our salvation. How can we be clothed with Christ though unworthy sinners? And that’s the mystery of the atonement.

    So I would say that all you say about union properly applies to adoption, the experiential life of being a son of God that we experience on the ground of our justification.

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  382. Daily Dose of Calvin: We only mean to maintain these two points, – that faith is never decided until it attain to a free promise; and that the only way in which faith reconciles us to God is by uniting us with Christ. Both are deserving of notice. — Calv Inst 3.2.30

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  383. Jeff,

    I think you have just eloquently called my apple an orange, but I still think you are off base. Take a look at the “in Christs in Ephesians , I am not denying a relational component to union here, but the evidence for “in Christ” to also be pointing to the eschatological fulfillment of the Land promise is compelling. I am not saying adoption isn’t also present here, but you’ve sidestepped a good deal of the substance of the Waltke quote, and my subsequent comments. Adoption is what enabled Israel’s inheritance “in the Land” but it’s not equated with being in it. Conversely, the covenant blessings of being in the Land, correspond to a high degree to our blessings “in Christ”, namely access to the presence of God, and the forgiveness signified in the sacrificial system. Our attendance at worship on the Lord’s Day is the closes we get to the liturgy of Israel, who did live in a holy land, and didn’t have to struggle with living in the 2 kingdoms as we do in the Church, this is a blessing we enjoy “in Christ”.

    The inheritence and redemption promises we have in Eph 1are directly related to the land promises, as are is the forgiveness we have “in Christ”. In the OT, the inheritance should be the easiest to see, as the inheritance was the Land in the OT, and also a recapitulation of the blessed state that was briefly enjoyed in the Garden of Eden. Forgiveness was not only what enabled Israel to enter the Land, it was also what maintained her status there. In Christ, however, our forgiveness was once for all, and we need not rely on the cult to secure our status in Christ. The effects of the redemption we have in Christ open us to a new mode of existing in him, and drawing us into the inheritance we have in Christ. Chapter 2: 11-22, among other things, expounds on blessings we enjoy “in Christ”, and here the Land motifs in the OT shine:

    [One in Christ]
    [11] Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—[12] remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [14] For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [15] by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, [16] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. [17] And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. [18] For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. [19] So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, [20] built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, [21] in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. [22] In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
    (Ephesians 2:11-22 ESV)

    In other words, how do you see Waltke’s assessment of Paul’s “in Christ” being the eschatological, christological fulfillment of the Land promises in the OT. The Land portion of Waltke’s OT Theology is one of the most substantial portions of the book, because it is one of the largest concepts in the OT. However, as Waltke rightly notes, there is almost no mention of Land, or allusion to a terrestrial place where the church enjoys the covenant blessings anticipated in the new covenant (Jer. 31-33). All of these are subsumed into the person of Christ. If the Land was the setting where the blessings of God were mediated to Israel, then “in Christ” in a spiritually-spatial sense, the blessings of God are mediated to us until the eschatological Land promises are consumated.

    This is why I still maintain you need a better canonical description for union, it isn’t as if it came from nowhere. I don’t want to tear down what constitutes a beautiful doctrine here Jeff, I hope you hear me on this, but it needs to be nuanced and understood in light of its

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  384. Jeff, I don’t think anyone here is denying this. The question is one of priority (justification and sanctification). And another is whether we are justified by union or justified by faith, or justified by faith-union.

    And do I now understand that whenever you say “union” you only mean federal headship? Well, no one is denying that either. But I don’t think that is what Gaffin has in view. I think he is talking about mystical union.

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  385. The claim that justification happens by uniting us to Christ is not a pushback against the point that justification is by faith alone…That’s abundantly clear when you read 16th and 17th century theologians, who freely say *both* that justification is by faith alone, and also that God justifies us by uniting us to Christ.

    Jeff, I don’t think so. What I get is that justification is by faith alone and that God unites us to Christ by doing so. The way you formulate it, it sounds like we are justified by faith and by union. But, again, HC 61:

    Why sayest thou, that thou art righteous by faith only?

    Answer: Not that I am acceptable to God, on account of the worthiness of my faith; but because only the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ, is my righteousness before God; and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only.

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  386. DGH: Jeff, I don’t think anyone here is denying this.

    Well, it looks that way to me, when Zrim insists that justification precedes union. He reasons that Christ can’t be our head until we receive the verdict of righteousness. To me, that looks like a flat-out denial of federal headship.

    DGH: And do I now understand that whenever you say “union” you only mean federal headship?

    No, union as the term is used in Calvin — and I believe thence the Standards also — encompasses two components: federal headship, whence comes justification; and the indwelling Spirit, whence comes “regeneration” (or sanctification in more modern parlance).

    One term. Two components. Two distinct-but-simultaneous benefits, with justification having logical priority over sanctification in the sense that the indicative precedes the imperative.

    DGH: The question is one of priority (justification and sanctification). And another is whether we are justified by union or justified by faith, or justified by faith-union.

    Are you justified by faith, or justified by imputation?

    My question is absurd. We would send a student back to seminary who tried to pit faith against imputation.

    Well, the forensic component of “union” is nothing more nor less than the imputation of the righteousness of our Head to us. The two terms, union and imputation, as used by Calvin when speaking of justification, are synonyms. Thus he says, “the only way that faith reconciles us to God is by uniting us to Christ.”

    So are we justified by faith or union? Both, in exactly the same sense that we are justified by faith and imputation.

    DGH: But I don’t think that is what Gaffin has in view. I think he is talking about mystical union.

    No idea.

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  387. Zrim: Jeff, I don’t think so. What I get is that justification is by faith alone and that God unites us to Christ by doing so.

    Calvin (again): “We only mean to maintain these two points, – that faith is never decided until it attain to a free promise; and that the only way in which faith reconciles us to God is by uniting us with Christ. Both are deserving of notice. — Calv Inst 3.2.30”

    It’s impossible to read this as “God unites us to Christ by justifying us.”

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  388. Sorry guys, couldn’t resist a comment.

    ‘I should say that I am not “aligned” with John T and do not endorse his positions as a general rule (though perhaps we coincide on specific points). I’m sure he would say the same about me.
    So for instance, I agree with you (and seemingly against him) that “It is legal union with the death which has justified the elect and set them free.”’.

    ‘ I’m sure he would say the same about me’. Agreed Jeff. However, I do agree that, ‘It is legal union with the death which has justified the elect and set them free.”’. Legal union is always logically prior.

    Jed, I totally agree with your ‘land’ reference. ‘Heavenlies’ is opposed to ‘land’. However, while in Israel redemption – desert – land are temporally divided in the NT they are as one. I don’t think we can deduce anything about either temporal or logical priority from the metaphor; the metaphor is just that, a metaphor. We must allow Eph 1 to deliver its own verdict: ‘in him we have redemption (Egypt) the forgiveness of sins (passover?).

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  389. Jeff, I do appreciate your standing in here and I wish the rest of the unionists had not left the room. But don’t you think it a little odd that your view of union is so different from Gaffin’s, and as someone who advocates union the way you do — it brought you back from your internet slumbers, after all — don’t you think it would be useful for you to know what the major proponent of union today is saying? I’m not asking you to speak for Gaffin and WTS Phila. I’m just surprised you don’t know more of what they say.

    And as for your view of union — federal headship plus indwelling Spirit — if that is supposed to correspond to justification and sanctification I am really confused. I understand that a federal relationship is forensic. But beyond that the similarities between federal headship and justification end.

    Actually, justification by imputation doesn’t make much sense either since the debate was and still is between works or faith. Your disregard for established technical language is (sorry) troubling.

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  390. Jeff reasons: when we believe, that unites us to Jesus, which unites us to justification. But Jeff doesn’t think that’s a time order.

    But to go back to what RL wrote: “I can no more make Christ my federal head through faith than I can make him my creator through faith. Christ is made my federal head by appointment, by the decree. It’s proclaimed to me through the Gospel. I believe it because he has sent his Spirit. I don’t make his headship a reality through faith.”

    mark: I would nuance this in two ways. 1. Yes, Christ is federal head of the elect by election, IN THE SENSE that Christ died for only the sins of the elect, sins that he bore as their surety. But, then there is in Romans 6 a “placed into” (baptized into) which is by God’s declaration, so that there is in ANOTHER SENSE legal justification in time, not eternal justification.

    Nuance 2,– this justification of the ungodly is through faith. We must say that not only because the Confessions say it, but also because the Scriptures say it. But why assume that the “instrument” of faith precedes the imputation, when we can say that “hearing” is the immediate effect of God’s imputation, since the life of regeneration is the immediate effect of God’s imputation?
    God’s word causes the hearing; it’s not our hearing that causes the word to be effective.

    After all, if we already have faith before we have Christ and the imputation of righteousness, then justification is no longer of the ungodly. And what is the point of saying that we are located in Christ before we are located in His death, unless of course we are taking only about election?

    RL’s good questions still apply: “How then do you make sense of the unambiguous teaching that “God justifies the ungodly.” Do you maintain that a faithful believer who has been both reborn through the power of the Spirit and united to the Resurrected Son of God is ungodly?!?!”

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  391. We have recently been told that “justified by faith or justified by imputation” is a silly question. I don’t think so, since the Confessions teach that we are justified by Christ’s righteousness.

    To understand Genesis 15:6, we need to know that “as righteousness” should be translated “unto righteousness”. (See Robert Haldane’s commentary, Banner of Truth). That’s important to see, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t explain the imputation.

    Whether we see imputation as the transfer of something, or if we see imputation as the declaration of something (without a transfer, or after a transfer), what is the “it” which is being imputed? No matter if we have gone to great lengths to say that it is not credited as righteousness but only unto righteousness, what is “it” and why is God imputing “it”?

    NT Wright tells us the imputation is without a transfer, and that it only means declaring that certain folks are in the covenant. In this way of thinking, “it is imputed” simply means that God declares people just without talking about how and why they got that way.

    God did not say to Abraham: if you believe, then I will bless you. God said, I will bless you without cause, not only so that you will believe but also so that in your offspring there will be one who will bring in the righteousness for the elect alone required by the law.

    The “it” which is imputed by God to Abraham is the obedient bloody death of Abraham’s seed Jesus Christ for the elect alone.

    Galatians 3:5-8, which quotes Genesis 15:6, tells us that Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him as righteousness. Many folks read this as saying that faith alone is imputed as the righteousness. John Murray, in his commentary, explains that faith alone for nine reasons cannot be the righteousness imputed.

    Romans 4:24-25 “IT will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised up for our justification.”

    1. Christ and His death are the IT. Faith is not the IT. Christ and His death are the object of faith. But Christ and His death (His righteousness) are the IT credited by God. “Faith” should be understood as the “object of faith”. Christ’s righteousness is imputed. Christ’s righteousness is revealed in the gospel, which is the object of faith.

    2. God counts according to truth. God counts righteousness as righteousness! This is not our righteousness (not our works of faith) but “transferred” to us when Christ legally marries us, so that what is His is still His but now ours also.

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  392. Jeff,

    David R: I think there are two reasons that your gloss in brackets is probably not in view in Berkhof. (Or if I mistype his name badly enough, Berfkhfof).

    First, you’ll notice that starting at para B, Berkhof limits the scope of the discussion to subjective union only: “Most generally, however, it [the term mystical union] denotes only the crowning aspect of that union, namely, its subjective realization by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and it is this aspect of it that is naturally in the foreground in soteriology. All that is said in the rest of this chapter bears on this subjective union.”

    So the graces in view in the passage you cite, coming later, are most likely to be the graces experienced in the subjective union, post-justification in logical sequence.

    Au contraire. For these reasons:

    1. If justification is not also the judicial ground for the special grace that we receive prior to our subjective union with Christ (i.e., effectual calling, regeneration and faith), then what is?

    2. While it’s true that Berkhof is discussing the “subjective realization” of union in the section I’d quoted above, his point in that particular passage was to make a point about what subjective union emphatically doesn’t provide, namely, the judicial ground for our reception of all special grace (and that judicial ground, of course, is the imputation of Christ’s merits, or justification).

    3. Recall that for the Reformed tradition, “special grace” is a technical term for the grace of God bestowed upon the elect, in distinction from “common grace,” which is bestowed on all men indiscriminately. The term “special grace” embraces the entire ordo, from effectual calling to glorification. Earlier in the essay, Berkhof had already invoked the term, remember?

    Even the very first blessing of the saving grace of God which we receive already presupposes a union with the Person of the Mediator. [That “very first blessing” would be effectual calling, correct?] It is exactly at this point that we find one of the most characteristic differences between the operations and blessings of special and those of common grace. The former can be received and enjoyed only by those who are in union with Christ, while the latter can be and are enjoyed also by those who are not reckoned in Christ …

    4. Berkhof is alert to the issue that you raise, and that’s why he makes it clear in his chapter on justification that there is a distinction between our objective justification, on the one hand, and our subjective realization of our justification, on the other hand. Check it out:

    E. The Sphere in which Justification Occurs.

    The question as to the sphere in which justification occurs, must be answered with discrimination. It is customary to distinguish between an active and a passive, also called an objective and a subjective, justification, each having its own sphere.

    1. ACTIVE OR OBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATION. This is justification in the most fundamental sense of the word. It is basic to what is called subjective justification, and consists in a declaration which God makes respecting the sinner, and this declaration is made in the tribunal of God. This declaration is not a declaration in which God simply acquits the sinner, without taking any account of the claims of justice, but is rather a divine declaration that, in the case of the sinner under consideration, the demands of the law are met. The sinner is declared righteous in view of the fact that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him. In this transaction God appears, not as an absolute Sovereign who simply sets the law aside, but as a righteous Judge, who acknowledges the infinite merits of Christ as a sufficient basis for justification, and as a gracious Father, who freely forgives and accepts the sinner. This active justification logically precedes faith and passive justification. We believe the forgiveness of sins.

    2. PASSIVE OR SUBJECTIVE JUSTIFICATION. Passive or subjective justification takes place in the heart or conscience of the sinner. A purely objective justification that is not brought home to the sinner would not answer the purpose. The granting of a pardon would mean nothing to a prisoner, unless the glad tidings were communicated to him and the doors of the prison were opened. Moreover, it is exactly at this point that the sinner learns to understand better than anywhere else that salvation is of free grace. When the Bible speaks of justification, it usually refers to what is known as passive justification. It should be borne in mind, however, that the two cannot be separated. The one is based on the other. The distinction is simply made to facilitate the proper understanding of the act of justification. Logically, passive justification follows faith; we are justified by faith.

    Second, if we try to make Berkhof’s “graces” refer to all saving graces, even justifying faith, then an alarming side-effect appears.

    For at the head of that chapter, Berkhof says “Even the very first blessing of the saving grace of God which we receive already presupposes a union with the Person of the Mediator.” So your read, if correct, would have union prior to faith. Yikes.

    But union is prior to faith in that union is effected in our effectual calling. Berkhof again:

    In view of what was said, it is quite evident that it is not correct to say that the mystical union is the fruit of man’s believing acceptance of Christ, as if faith were not one of the blessings of the covenant which flow unto us from the fulness of Christ, but a condition which man must meet partly or wholly in his own strength, in order to enter into living relationship with Jesus Christ. Faith is first of all a gift of God, and as such a part of the treasures that are hidden in [union with] Christ. It enables us to appropriate on our part what is given unto us in Christ, and to enter ever-increasingly into conscious enjoyment of the blessed union with Christ, which is the source of all our spiritual riches.

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  393. Jeff,

    Consider this from Berkhof as well:

    [Faith] can be called an appropriating organ in a twofold sense: (a) It is the organ by which we lay hold on and appropriate the merits of Christ, and accept these as the meritorious ground of our justification. As such it logically precedes justification, (b) It is also the organ by which we consciously apprehend our justification and obtain possession of subjective justification. In this sense it logically follows justification. On the whole this name [i.e., appropriating organ] deserves preference [over “instrumental cause”], though it should be borne in mind that, strictly speaking, faith is the organ by which we appropriate the righteousness of Christ as the ground of our justification, rather than the organ by which we appropriate justification itself.

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  394. DGH: But don’t you think it a little odd that your view of union is so different from Gaffin’s…

    Yes, possibly. Since my orbit has not been WTS-o-centric (east or west), but rather RTS, and Old Princeton before that, I haven’t felt the need or pressure to align with east or west.

    My RTS profs — who included Dr. Muether on the one hand and Dr. Griffith on the other — represented a wide swath of views and mostly placed emphasis on the exegetical.

    (which is why, though I argue the Confession when in Escondido, in my heart of hearts I want to argue directly from Scripture as being the fitting and proper method.)

    I did interact with union and ordo a bit under Griffith. I wrote a paper suggesting that the two views could be reconciled by distinguishing between temporal order and logical order, and that the notion of logical order is not absolute, but is controlled by the question one is asking.

    I still maintain that thesis.

    In regard to where Gaffin falls out, there are several possibilities.

    (1) He could believe that being union-o-centric is necessary in order to remain Christ-o-centric.
    (2) He could be cutting the same cake in a very different way, while retaining all the pieces, OR
    (3) He could be introducing a subtle new concept, a kind of bug into Reformed theology, that will have side-effects down the road.

    (I’ve been doing coding for my math class, so bugs and side effects are on the brain)

    If (2), then our views of union wouldn’t be all that different. If (3), then I hope they are!

    I don’t honestly know, and I don’t think it’s necessary for me to find out. Here’s why: I would rather teach sound doctrine, than to ferret out Gaffin’s putative errors. If someone comes into our congregation all excited about Gaffinian union, then the hope is that our SS classes will give him food for thought.

    Far, far better to gently correct false teaching through the truth, if possible, than to try to make an issue of it. People — with exceptions — shut their ears when the temperature rises.

    Honestly, I doubt that more than 5 in our congregation have heard of Gaffin.

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  395. Those posts by Mark and David were extremely helpful in sorting this out. The confusion seems to lie in that there is an ontological change (effectual calling or regeneration) which happens to the believer and causes the gift of faith which is the instrument we use to connect us to the work Christ did for us (justification). So this ontological change could be mistaken for union with Christ which does preceed (temporally and logically) repentance, faith and justification.

    As a Lutheran I have a few questions. Could it be the distinction between special grace and common grace in Reformed thought be a key to understanding why Lutherans believe in universal atonement and Calvinists believe in limited atonement (only for the elect)? I do not think the Lutherans have this distinction clearly spelled out in their systematics like the Calvinists do. Lutherans try to get around universalism by distinguishing objective atonement and subjective atonement (which applies the objective work of Christ to us subjectively which distinguishes the believer from the unbeliever). This is not as careful as the Calvinist distinctions.

    I also still have questions about how this power over sin, we have in Christ, works itself out in our lives. Is there a will or “cooperative effort” on our part involved in our struggle with our still inherent sin? Part of the work of the Law is to convince us that there is nothing good “in us.” It convinces us to turn to Christ for our standing in righteousness. But how does the Holy Spirit give us this “power” over our sin. I lean towards the understanding that we get it by listening to the Law and Gospel preached each Sunday and also believing and partaking of the Sacraments. This enhances our faith which gives us more more desire and power to overcome our sin. It is easy for this faith to diminish in our lives and our power seems to wane. This is the importance of attending Church each Sunday- we receive from Christ which enhances our faith which is supposed to enhance our power over our sin. We also get the forgiveness we need each Sunday to cleanse our conscience from our struggles with our sin that we daily battle with.

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  396. Mark McC: After all, if we already have faith before we have Christ and the imputation of righteousness, then justification is no longer of the ungodly.

    Actually, that’s the only way that one *could* have justification of the ungodly.

    Consider the two possibilities:

    (1) An ungodly man is granted the gift of faith by the HS. As a result, he receives the righteousness of Christ. Thus, the ungodly man has been justified.

    This is the position I’m arguing for.

    (2) The ungodly man is in fact objectively justified, which causes him to believe, which causes him to subjectively appropriate his justification.

    This appears to be the position RL and David R are arguing for, via Berkhof.

    So I ask, in this scheme, where is the justification of the ungodly? In the objective sense, the “ungodly man” is actually already justified!

    Perhaps you can now understand my reluctance to sign on. So:

    Do you maintain that a faithful believer who has been both reborn through the power of the Spirit and united to the Resurrected Son of God is ungodly?? — No, I don’t.

    On the other post: We have recently been told that “justified by faith or justified by imputation” is a silly question. I don’t think so, since the Confessions teach that we are justified by Christ’s righteousness.

    The reason it is a silly question is that it presupposes that one excludes the other. The correct answer to the question is, “both.”

    In like manner, the correct answer to the question, “Are we justified by faith or by union?”, is “both”, and for the same reason.

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  397. Reading this thread (which has been illuminating) as a simple believer, a question that comes to me is “Where do I find the Christ who saves and consoles?” In union? When union is brought in as integral to the answer something cloudy begins to descend upon my apprehension of that which feeds my soul. It seems that the centrality of the gospel, which through faith one finds the favor and goodness of God, now presented in conjunction with union moves me one step away from that simple faith receiving the good news from without. Not to say that ‘union’ isn’t important or even central, but it hits me as somewhat “an inside the beltway” thing… the mechanics of it all, a mystery wrought by the Holy Spirit. When, for the believer, it is about hearing and feeding on, through faith, the good news of God’s gracious pardon of my sins and the gift of Christ’s righteousness to my account. As summed up in the visible gospel:

    Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.

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  398. The federal headship stuff does confuse me still though and I am not sure what the point of that is. I know that is all involved in the imputation concept but that could be another reason why Lutherans fought with Calvinists about covenant theology. Heaship is more implied from scripture passages rather than clearly stated and this has always been a source of contention between Lutherans and Calvinists. But I do think convenant theology can be very helpful when rightly understood.

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  399. David R and RL: I think y’all have correctly grasped Berkhof. Now the question is, has Berkhof correctly grasped the Reformed teaching, or is the distinction between objective justification and subjective justification a Dutch idiosyncrasy?

    And several things point, in my mind, to the latter.

    (1) First, we are told in Romans that God justifies the ungodly by faith.

    But Berkhof is saying, apparently, that we become righteous by imputation in which God forgives us; which is the precondition for our faith; which then subjectively appropriates justification.

    It kinda looks like he’s saying that God justifies the already justified, by faith.

    (2) He somewhat gives the game away with this admission: “When the Bible speaks of justification, it usually refers to what is known as passive justification.”

    Well, I would push one further: When we read in Scripture of justification, the default should be to read it as passive justification unless a high bar of proof is met.

    And one further still: When we read of justification in the Confession, only passive justification is in view.

    (3) And speaking of the Confession, Berkhof is hard to square with this:

    4. God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.

    Notice that the application of Christ (which occurs through the alone instrument of faith, para 2) is the subjective justification of which Berkhof speaks. And yet the Confession affirms: “they are not justified” until this occurs; whereas Berkhof says that they are.

    All of this makes me wonder what the connections are between Berkhof and Kuyper, on the one hand, and Berkhof and H. Hoeksema on the other.

    It seems like Berkhof’s “objective justification” is actually more God’s decree to justify on the basis of the atonement.

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  400. Jed, if I’m hearing you, you are saying that we should not read “in Christ” in Ephesians as a reference to union, but as an eschatological “in the new Land.”

    If so (or correct me if not), then I wonder why so many Reformed authors take Eph 1 as a basic union text.

    Perhaps it’s not either/or? Anyways, thanks for the very, very interesting thought.

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  401. Gentlemen, my shot clock has expired. Coding awaits; student recommendations await; and I have to chip up several years worth of tree brush. I will certainly read any further comments you have to make, but I need to be disciplined and not reply to them.

    May God bless your endeavors. Keep resting in our free justification.

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  402. I still get confused in what Jeff is driving at and why. His last post does explain some of this but I am still not clear on all of it. Perhaps it is because I am not as familiar with the Reformed theologians and Reformed confessions as Jeff is or I am just having a hard time comprehending simple points (like Paul M. accuses me of all the time and leads him to not want to dialog with me anymore). If I was going to make a test for seminary students I would ask them to make a time line for me and then ask them to put in proper temporal and logical sequence the ordor salutis of how God redeems us in Christ. And then I would ask them to define as clearly as possible the terms that that use and whether it is an objective declaration about our standing in Christ or an actual ontological change that occurs in our subjective selves. I would then ask them to explain what role the human will has in each of these terms. I know you cannot put time lines on blog sites but you can make lists as follows:

    1) Federal Headship- having to do with divine decrees, Adam and Christ
    2) Effectual calling or regeneration (what exactly is this?- a persuasive power that makes us rest in Christ’s righteousness or some kind of ontological change?)
    3) Imputation (Is this related to union or simply a declaration of Christ’s work for us applied to us somehow- is it objective or subjective? or both?
    4) Repentance and Faith
    5) Justification of the Ungodly (is there anytime we can be called ungodly with our still indwelling sin?)
    6) Union- is this a time concept or something which encompasses all of the ordor solutis?
    7) Sanctification- how is this related to the objective work of Christ and how the Holy Spirit applies this work to our objective selves who still struggle with inherent sin?

    What is the traditional ground that already has been covered by past theologians and the confessions and where do the controversies lie?

    This will probably be ignored but can anyone try taking the test please. It might be helpful to those of us having a hard time comprehending it all. And these are critical and important issues to understand properly. We can easily be led astray here.

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  404. I am asking this because I am assuming most of you who have been making frequent posts know more than me regarding this matter. It often gets difficult to sort through this all and a test format helps to bring clarity- assuming the test maker knows the right answers. Perhaps I live under the delusion that some answers are more right than others. If one believes in biblical truth than that is implied but it can difficult to get to the truth at times.

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  405. Jeff,

    Jed, if I’m hearing you, you are saying that we should not read “in Christ” in Ephesians as a reference to union, but as an eschatological “in the new Land.”

    If so (or correct me if not), then I wonder why so many Reformed authors take Eph 1 as a basic union text.

    With respect to the eschatological fulfillment of the covenant blessings Israel inherited/enjoyed in relationship to her God: Israel ‘in the Promised Land’ prophetically approximates the Church’s life ‘in Christ’. The Land was the setting (in literary terms), in which Israel related to God, and in a very real way Christ unites and binds the church in him as we relate to God. It is part of the matrix of the Kingdom of God. If life in Canaan was a spatial, locative setting where God’s blessings were experienced, often in very concrete terms: agricultural abundance, livestock abundance, rain, peace from external threats etc., and most importantly the vital connection to God in worship centered around his manifest presence in the Tabernacle and later, Temple; then life in Christ is more of a spiritualized (or Christified) spatial, locative setting where we experience the abundance of God’s covenant blessings: redemption, forgiveness, peace, spiritual nourishment, and a pared down cult compared to the OT, but immediate access to the holy of holies through the order of corporate worship.

    There is roughly 1500 years of OT canonical history supporting Paul’s statements about union. As an OT guy, when I read the union debates I go bonkers, not because you union guys aren’t on to something, but because there is a whole conceptual substructure that Paul is assuming. I am heartened that NT scholarship is paying much more mind to the use of the OT in the NT, because the current union debates are sometimes too much of an abstraction from their OT antecedents.

    Perhaps it’s not either/or? Anyways, thanks for the very, very interesting thought.

    I certainly think this is a both/and situation with respect to Pauline notions of union. Though you and I are probably still in disagreement with respect to priority of justification in this discussion. I don’t want to deny the validity of much of the talk about what union is, I do think that it moves too far from the concrete nature of it’s OT roots. I know that the Greek-Hebrew contrast has been overplayed in many damaging ways, so I am not reducing the issues I am discussing here to this, but there are OT/Hebraic covenantal concepts going on in what is commonly understood to be ‘union’. There is a mystical, relational sense to union to be sure, however, there is a ground, or setting to it that is the conduit of relationship between God and his people, and we find those concepts developed in the OT.

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  406. Mark Mc: After all, if we already have faith before we have Christ and the imputation of righteousness, then justification is no longer of the ungodly.
    Jeff: Actually, that’s the only way that one *could* have justification of the ungodly.

    mark: I was only adding my amen to RL’s urgent question. Jeff, it seems to me that you have ignored all that I have said about Gen 15, Romans 4, and the fact that faith cannot be imputed as the righteousness. Faith cannot be imputed. But not to ignore what YOU wrote—

    Jeff: Consider the two possibilities:
    (1) An ungodly man is granted the gift of faith by the HS. As a result, he receives the righteousness of Christ. Thus, the ungodly man has been justified.
    This is the position I’m arguing for.

    mark: Neither RL nor I deny that justification is through faith. But we question (deny) that the imputation is “the result of faith” (as you put it above). Since the gift of faith was purchased by Christ, how could it be given before Christ’s righteousness is imputed? And even if it were first in time, a. we would still make a distinction between imputing faith and imputing righteousness.
    and b. knowing that the work of the Spirit giving (not imputing!) faith is a logical result of the righteousness imputed.

    Some of the confusion here is that some folks tend to think of the justified elect as just as ungodly as they were before justification. But this is not correct. It begs the question, by looking elsewhere than legal imputation to determine godly or ungodly. To have been imputed with Christ’s righteousness (“become the righteousness of God in Christ”) is to have been declared godly, not in our own righteousness, but in the righteousness which God now counts as our righteousness.

    But if the elect are born again before they are justified, then that at least looks like they are justified BECAUSE they are born again, and that would be to locate being “godly” in what the Spirit does in us rather than what Christ did, apart from us, outside us, over there, back then.

    How can you have a born again person who is not yet godly? But how can you have a justified person who is not yet born again? Nobody is trying to deny either regeneration or justification. And at least on this list, most of us are also trying not to confuse regeneration and regeneration. But some of us think that hearing the gospel with faith is the immediate result of God’s legal declaration. And we ask questions if “union” gets defined as both the justification and the regeneration, but then later it turns out that “union” means only the regeneration and “justification” is after this “union”.

    jeff suggests as alternative (2) “The ungodly man is in fact objectively justified, which causes him to believe, which causes him to subjectively appropriate his justification. So I ask, in this scheme, where is the justification of the ungodly? In the objective sense, the “ungodly man” is actually already justified!”

    mark: 1. I don’t use the word “appropriate”, no matter how many famous theologians use it, since it sounds like “steal” to me, no matter how passive one describe the “empty hands”. 2. I am confused about your objection. It’s not saying that the elect person was eternally justified. As Romans 16:7 suggests, some of the elect are in Christ before others. As Romans 6 suggests, some are baptized into Christ before others. It’s only saying that the imputation is before the gift of faith. Galatians 4:6–because you ARE sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts.

    Of course the justified person is already justified. Before justification, the elect person was ungodly, and after the imputation of righteousness, the person is godly. Romans 8:10 does not say that we have righteousness because of the Spirit. Romans 8:10 says that the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

    jeff: The reason it is a silly question is that it presupposes that one excludes the other. The correct answer to the question is, “both.”

    mark: Since Christ’s righteousness is the righteousness which God imputes, that EXCLUDES the idea that faith is the righteousness which God imputes. It is NOT both that God imputes. God imputes righteousness, which is the object of faith, and the act of faith is NOT imputed.

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  407. Jeff,

    Now the question is, has Berkhof correctly grasped the Reformed teaching, or is the distinction between objective justification and subjective justification a Dutch idiosyncrasy?

    I think you’ll find that Berkhof is simply striving to reconcile a couple of apparently contradictory truths:

    1. On the one hand, the righteousness of Christ imputed to us in our justification is the judicial ground of all the special grace we receive.

    2. Yet, in the application of redemption, there are some benefits of special grace, like effectual calling, that come to us prior to our being justified by faith.

    So what do we make of the fact that some of the benefits of special grace come to us while we are still actually under the wrath of God, prior to our being justified by faith? Well, I think one thing we make of it is that the work of establishing logical priorities in the ordo involves some care. Is faith logically prior to justification? Well, in one sense yes, but in another sense no. What I see Berkhof doing is simply grappling with this problem and making some careful distinctions.

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  408. Lutherans are not the only ones who teach an “objective justification” which turns out in the end not to be effective. But let me refer a Lutheran who teaches this because of his clarity.Jacob Preus (Just Words: Understanding the Fullness of the Gospel ,Concordia, 2000) writes: “Faith is necessary to appropriate the reconciliation of Christ. However, our faith does not make Christ’s work effective. It is effective even if no one approves it, even if no one is saved.” (p140).

    Note that this is not a “federal visionist” talking about “objectivity”. But any justification which would be “effective” even if no one is saved is NOT gospel. It’s not good news to make salvation depend on “appropriation”.

    One, this “objective justification” has no idea that Christ’s death purchased the work of the Spirit and faith for the elect (I Peter 1:21;II Peter 1:1; Eph 4:7-8; Phil 1:29).Two, it has no idea of a propitiation for specific sins imputed, and therefore ends up with an “effective justification” in which it’s still possible that nobody is forgiven of their sins.
    Unless you teach universal reconciliation, teaching an universal objective justification always means a probation conditioned on the sinner.. Faith becomes what justifies, even if you deny that faith is a work and try to give the credit to a false Christ who died for everybody.

    But does not the Bible use the word “reconcile” only with human sinners in mind? No. Let me channel John Murray for a minute. First, Romans 5:17 speaks of “receiving the reconciliation”. This does not mean overcoming your enmity against God in order to overcome your enmity against God! It means to passively receive by imputation what Christ did.

    Second, Matthew 5:24 (sermon on the mount) commands “leave your gift there before the altar and first be reconciled to your brother.” So, even though we are the objects of reconciliation, though we receive it, that receiving is not what justifies. What God did in Christ’s death is the basis for justification. It’s Christ death which God imputes, not faith in the death.

    God’s decree to impute Christ’s death to the elect is not the same as God’s historical “placing into that death”. Sinners become the imputers, whenever you leave out the good news that God is one who imputes. God imputed the sins of the elect to Christ, and then in time, before and after that, God places these same sinners into Christ’s death.

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  409. Cunha, The Emperor’s New Clothes, p82–”if the new birth casually precedes faith, which is the alone instrument of justification, doesn’t this mean that creative work of God’s Spirit within a man, regeneration, precedes a legal change in status, justification, in the application of redemption? Yes, it does….Whatever is made of the fact that the new birth precedes faith, the Biblical definition of faith must not be altered in order to accommodate a preconceived notion that the forensic act of justification cannot be preceded causally by the actual change produced within a man…To say, for example, that faith is merely the awareness of justification that has occurred prior to faith is to define faith in a way that is foreign to Scripture.”

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  410. Jeff, if you can search it out, Bavinck (sorry, another Dutchman) has a very thorough and helpful discussion of objective/subjective justification in his chapter on the subject in his Systematic Theology.

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  412. Mark,

    I am not sure you are understanding the Lutheran faith properly according to the Lutheran confessions but this is what I hear you saying about imputation, effectual call (regeneration), repentance and faith. Correct me if you think I have the temporal and logical order wrong.

    1) God imputes the sins of the elect sinner to Christ
    2) God places the sinner into Christ’s death
    3) God causes us to receive the reconciliation passively by this double imputation
    4) This passive receiving can only be accomplished by God making the call or imputation effective (regeneration) which occurs at the same time with repentance and faith.

    I do not remember you ever talking of the ordo salutis or federal headship- is there a reason for that or am I mistaken about that?

    But when I reread that quote by Cunha it states regeneration preceeds the double imputation. Is the “forensic act” (it is not just a declaration, it is a declaration and an act) the same thing as imputation?

    And why can’t you tell us what confession you adhere to and what theologians you find the most clear and accurate on the matter? That is troubling to me.

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  413. What I wrote in my last post is what I understand as what happens when we are justified. We then become “godly” because of this imputation God has caused to happen. We can take no credit for it- we just receive it with the gift of repentance and faith. Our wills also have nothing to do with it- is that correct in your understanding?

    We still do posses our Adamic natures even though we put that nature to death at baptism (Romans chapter 6). Is our flesh, the Adamic nature and original sin the same things. Sorry but this stuff can get almost endlessly confusing.

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  414. My post about Lutheran “objective justification” prompts John to ask me some questions:

    John Y:Correct me if you think I have the temporal and logical order wrong.
    1) God imputes the sins of the elect sinner to Christ
    2) God places the sinner into Christ’s death
    3) God causes us to receive the reconciliation passively by this double imputation
    4) This passive receiving can only be accomplished by God making the call or imputation effective (regeneration) which occurs at the same time with repentance and faith.

    mark: I agree with all four, but would want to add more clarity/ qualification to 3 and 4.
    On 3, God is the imputer, and the two imputations are not at the same time. The imputation of all the sins of all the elect to Christ has already happened.(I think this is where Lutherans would disagree) But being legally placed into the death has not already happened for all the elect. Some like Abraham were placed into the death, and thus justified, before Christ Himself was justified. Other elect persons have not yet been justified, have not yet baptized into Christ’s death. And of course I have said that this “baptism” is not by the Holy Spirit or by water.

    Gaffin is not a “bad guy” for asking questions about when the “into the death” or the “quickening” happens. Romans 6 and Ephesians 2 cannot be reduced to the past, neither can they be limited to present “union”.

    On 4, the receiving of the reconciliation (Romans 5:11, 17) is not by faith, but by imputation. But regeneration and receiving by faith are the immediate consequences of the imputation. So “passive” first in the sense of imputation. And since we all agree (I think) that the imputation and the “Christ in us” happens at the same time, we could say that it doesn’t matter which is logically first or “cause”. But “unionists” seem to think it matters. And I agree that our idea about the order will effect our idea about the definitions.

    john y: I do not remember you ever talking of the ordo salutis or federal headship- is there a reason for that or am I mistaken about that?

    mark: I have done lots of posts (too many), and have talked order and federalism. I am federalist because a. I think guilt and righteousness have priority over corruption and regeneration and b. I teach an union by election, so that Christ died only for the elect.

    john y: when I reread that quote by Cunha it states regeneration preceeds the double imputation. Is the “forensic act” (it is not just a declaration, it is a declaration and an act) the same thing as imputation?

    mark: 1. I don’t agree with Cunha that regeneration preceeds the imputation of righteousness (yes, transfer and declaration are a forensic act). I agree with Horton, B McCormack, E Boehl, Abraham Booth, that regeneration is the immediate result of imputation.
    2. But I do agree with Cunha about the nature of faith. I don’t think faith is merely the recognition that we have always been justified. I disagree with John Gill, Tobias Crisp, Hoeksema, Kuyper, and Barth and any who teach “eternal justification”.
    3. I also agree with Cunha that the main issue is not the temporal order, but keeping the imputation and regeneration distinct. Faith is not imputed. Righteousness is imputed.
    4. Finally, even though it doesn’t matter who I agree with or not, you asked, so let me say. Yes, Calvin put regeneration before justification. I think that leads to the problems pointed out by Horton and McCormack, but we do need to be honest that this is the mainline tradition assumed in the confessions. (btw, if I have to choose, I go with the First London Baptist, but it does not speak to some of these issues.)

    I would like to learn more about Lutherans on this topic. I know that Preus is not the same as Forde, and it’s probably too simple when Gaffin says: Lutherans = justification results in “union”.

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  415. Mark,

    Still some things to reflect on and research more thoroughly. I will use all the Lutheran resources I have at my disposal to try to determine what the Lutheran position is on these issues. Thanks for your thoughtful response and answering my questions- that is greatly appreciated.

    I have read Horton but not McCormack, Boehl, or Booth. Which books or articles by Horton attack (not the right word but I did not want to use cover twice) these central topics we have been covering in this “Where’s Waldo” post? And any suggested reading material by McCormack, Boehl and Booth?

    From what I gather then you are Baptist- probably of the Spurgeon type. You would not happen to know Lance Laker in the Grand Rapids area would you? He just took over and is pastoring a Baptist congregation in Byron Center, Michigan. He married my 2nd son three weeks ago in Indianapolis. I had a great conversation with him at the wedding reception on church related matters. You may not want to answer any of these questions because of your seeming desire to remain somewhat anonymous. One more, do you teach at a seminary or are you a Pastor? I feel like I am playing that game that Jack Benny used to host where they would blindfold the panel and try to guess who the guest was by asking questions. I am revealing my age.

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  417. The following is an interesting quote I found tonight while reading some more on this subject. It is from Rich Lusk (a former PCA pastor now CREC- Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches- pastor) and he says this about justification, imputation and union: “This justification requires no transfer or imputation of anything. It does not force us to reify “righteousness” into something that can be shuffled around in heavenly accounting books. Rather because I am in the Righteous One and the Vindicated One, I am righteous and vindicated. My in-Christ-ness makes imputation redundant. I do not need the moral content of his life of righteousness transferred to me; what I need is a share of the forensic verdict passed over him at the resurrection. Union with Christ is therefore key.”

    This was cited in Modern Reformation magazines book Justified: Essays on the doctrine of justification edited by Michael Horton and Ryan Glomsrud. It was from the Fesko essay entitled A More Perfect Union? Justification and Union with Christ.

    And who says this stuff does not get confusing? It was on page 79 of the book. Better to stick with the confessions and the rationale and scripture passages which led to the confessional conclusions. But then the question seems to be which confessions are being most faithful to the scriptures?

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  418. Dear John, I am “credobaptist” but I don’t make a big deal about it, because I don’t see water when I see the word “baptism”. And no, that doesn’t make me a Bullingerite or a gnostic, but I am simply trying to explain my indifference to much debate about “sacrament”. And it’s not so much that I want to be anonymous, but I see myself as a guest on this blog. Even though I am five point Calvinist, I don’t call myself “Reformed” and am perfectly willing to say that only those paedobaptists (who use Zwingli’s argument from circumcision) should use that label. I guess that means I think Lutherans are not Reformed, and that anabaptists are not “non-magistrate” reformers.
    Also, I have agreed that Calvin put a non-forensic “union” before justification.

    You’re asking if I like Spurgeon only reminds me why I don’t like to use the “baptist” or “reformed baptist” category. Spurgeon did a lot of double-talking and was a very compromised Calvinist. Not that you have to be a baptist to do that!.

    John Y:I have read Horton but not McCormack, Boehl, or Booth. Which books or articles by Horton

    mark: 1. Horton’s book on “Covenant Union”, the third volume in his 4 volume drama series. Also the collection from Modern Reformation:Justified, which includes essays by Preus, David Gordon, and also the very important essay by George Hunsinger (American Tragedy: Jonathan Edwards on Justification”.
    2. Bruce Mcormack’s What’s At Stake in the Current Debates on Justification, in the Ivp (20040) collection from the Wheaton Theology Conference. I regard this essay as the single most important essay on imputation written in recent years. Horton refers to it often in his Covenant Union. Of course I do not agree with MCormack’s Barthian view of election and the atonement, the “actualism” and the “decree is present election” and “God becoming God”, but as a matter of historical reflection on what Calvin said (and didn’t say), it should not be ignored.
    3. Edward Boehl’s The Reformed Doctrine of Justification came out in 1946. The preface by Berkhof is interesting, because it shows that this current accusing some Reformed guys of being too “Lutheran” is not a new thing. Boehl came out of a Lutheran background, and brought some very good points with him that were not overcome by views that “condition” (in some way) justification on regeneration.
    4. Abraham Booth is an old baptist who loved John Owen and who fought the neo-nomianism of the New England theology of Andrew Fuller, Jonathan Edwards JR, Bellamy etc. And Booth did this without falling into the eternal justification ditch of John Gill and Tobias Crisp. I would recommend his Glad Tidings and especially Divine Justice Essential to the Divine Character, even though he is most famous for “The Reign of Grace”

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  419. Mark,

    That was a mouthful and shook me up a bit. I wanna go where the truth leads but that can also be dangerous without proper guidance from those who know a lot more than me.

    Last night I picked up that book Justified, which Modern Reformation magazine came out with in January or February of this year. I am rereading some of those essays again. And I do have Horton’s four volume, what you call “drama” series. I have started those books on many occasions but I have found them tough to read. Maybe I will start again with the Covenant and Salvation book which covers Union with Christ. I have worked hard the last few days trying to understand this stuff. Maybe that will pay off when I try to read Horton’s four volumes again. I get a headache just thinking about it.

    You still haven’t told me if you are a seminary professor or Pastor. You certainly do seem to know a lot about this topic of justification and union with Christ. Now that you have brought it up, I am also curious at to why you are not that concerned about things sacramental. If you do not want to post that here you can send a response to my personal email address at the following: johny382100@yahoo.com or click on my facebook page by clicking my name on my posts here at oldlife.

    The Lutheran Divine service on Sunday mornings does work for me. I always leave the service assured that my conscience has been cleansed, after listening to and singing the liturgy and partaking of the sacrament, from my battles with my still inherent sin that continually wants to beat me down and tell me I am unworthy- which I am. Plus I have gotten to know the Pastor real well and I trust him to help me in my assurance with absolution and being used by Christ to help in my sanctification and future glorification. To God be the glory.

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  421. There’s an interview with Lane Tipton at Reformed Forum that sheds lots of light on the view of things from the “unionist” side. One thing I found interesting is that Tipton argues that for one to suggest that justification has any kind of logical priority to regeneration (as Horton does) is a semi-Pelagian move. But both Berkhof and A.A. Hodge clearly viewed justification as the forensic ground of (and thus logically prior to) regeneration. Compare the following from Tipton, Berkhof and Hodge:

    Tipton:

    “If regeneration does not at least logically precede justification, then we are semi-Pelagians…. To say that we want justification to precede regeneration is to be semi-Pelagian…. So, the point that cannot be lost here … is that the moment someone prioritizes justification as the uber benefit, the omni benefit, the benefit that causes in some way effectual calling or regeneration, that person is de facto committed to some species or some permutation of a semi-Pelagian understanding of grace, a semi-Pelagian soteriology.”

    “If you prioritize justification … I don’t care if it’s logical, causal, teleological, pedagogical, whatever way you want to make it prior, whatever technical terminology you want to use to describe the priority of justification to effectual calling and to a renovative work of God, regeneration. Whenever you do that, you have moved into the terrain of semi-Pelagianism …”

    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…. 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.”

    “In connection with the various movements in the work of application we should bear in mind that the judicial acts of God constitute the basis for His recreative acts, so that justification, though not temporally, is yet logically prior to all the rest …”

    A.A. Hodge (from his essay, “The Ordo Salutis”):

    “The second characteristic mark of Protestant soteriology is the principle that the change of relation to the law signalized by the term justification, involving remission of penalty and restoration to favor, necessarily precedes and renders possible the real moral change of character signalized by the terms regeneration and sanctification. The continuance of judicial condemnation excludes the exercise of grace in the heart. Remission of punishment must be preceded by remission of guilt, and must itself precede the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart…. We are pardoned in order that we may be good, never made good in order that we may be pardoned….

    “These principles are of the very essence of Protestant soteriology. To modify, and much more, of course, to ignore or to deny them, destroys absolutely the thing known as Protestantism, and ought to incur the forfeiture of all recognized right to wear the name.”

    “This question is obviously one as to order, not of time, but of cause and effect. All admit, (1) That the satisfaction and merit of Christ are the necessary precondition of regeneration and faith as directly as of justification; (2) That regeneration and justification are both gracious acts of God; (3) That they take place at the same moment of time. The only question is, What is the true order of causation? Is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us that we may believe, or is it imputed to us because we believe? Is justification an analytic judgment, to the effect that this man, though a sinner, yet being a believer, is justified? Or is it a synthetic judgment, to the effect that this sinner is justified for Christ’s sake. Our catechism suggests the latter by the order of its phrases. God justifies us, ‘only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, and received by faith alone.’”

    “By consequence, the imputation of Christ’s righteous to us is the necessary precondition of the restoration to us of the influences of the Holy Ghost, and that restoration leads by necessary consequence to our regeneration and sanctification.

    “The notion that the necessary precondition of the imputation to us of Christ’s righteousness is our own faith, of which the necessary precondition is regeneration, is analogous to the rejected theory that the inherent personal moral corruption of each of Adam’s descendants is the necessary precondition of the imputation of his guilt to them. On the contrary, if the imputation of guilt is the causal antecedent of inherent depravity, in like manner the imputation of righteousness must be the causal antecedent of regeneration and faith.”

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  422. David,

    Thanks for the additional info. Hodge’s essay is far more persuasive than Berkhof, partly because Hodge admits the problem up front: placing justification ahead of faith in the ordo creates a situation of circular causation, in which faith causes justification and justification causes faith.

    He argues, citing Dorner, that “faith is nothing more than the commencement of such consciousness, and could not arise at all unless preceded objectively by justification before God – in other words, by a divine and gracious purpose, special with regard to the individual sinner, existing on God’s part as an accomplished act of pardon, and then applying to man by the exhibition and offer of the benefits of redemption. The vocation of the individual to salvation could not result unless God had already, in preventing love, previously pardoned the sinner for Christ’s sake, i.e., for the sake of that fellowship of Christ with the sinner which the latter had not yet rejected. It is only when Justificatio forensis maintains its Reformation position at the head of the process of salvation that it has any firm or secure standing at all. If removed from this, it is gradually driven to a greater and greater distance, till at last, as in Storr’s divinity, it takes its place at the end.””

    Here’s the problem:

    (1) Such justification prior to faith has no attestation in Scripture. As fond as I am of Hodge, here he is frankly asserting doctrine on the strength of human reason alone. Did you note the absence of Scripture citations?

    (2) He re-writes “justification by faith” to mean “consciousness of justification by faith”, BUT

    (3) The Confession is very clear on both the meaning of justification and its timing.

    * Justification is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer (11.1)
    * No person is justified until the Spirit actually apply Christ to that person (11.4)

    There is no daylight in which to argue that faith merely receives the consciousness of justification.

    In fact, 11.4 seems to have been written specifically to forestall Hodge’s doctrine:

    God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.

    From this, it seems clear that Hodge is confusing God’s decree to justify with the act of justification itself.

    Now, I’m not so sure that Tipton is right about semi-Pelagianism. But he does seem to me to be correct in refuting the notion that justification causes faith.

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  423. Jeff,

    I appreciate the conundrum and dilemma from both sides: It’s impossible to conceive of someone who is regenerate but not yet justified and vice versa. But I don’t know that your quote from the WCF helps you (at least if your intention is to argue that faith is logically prior to justification). Consider what 11.4 is saying: There is an eternal decree of justification and there is an objective accomplishment of it in the work of Christ, but it’s in the application of redemption that the elect are actually justified, i.e., when they are made alive in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit (regeneration). But that does not answer the question of whether justification or regeneration is logically prior. And on the face of it, at the very least, 11.4 suggests that justification is prior to faith (and perhaps coordinate with regeneration—something like in Buchanan’s view, which I quoted on the RF website).

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  424. David, you raise a very interesting question: What do we really mean by “logical priority”?

    I have some thoughts there, but it might be better to let you explain what you have in mind.

    In any event, my purpose in citing 11.4 is to demonstrate that justification does not cause faith, in the standard current use of the word “cause.”

    (Granted: Aristotelian causation includes teleological causes, as in “I am cooking because of tonight’s dinner” — the goal causes the prior actions. In this sense, we really could say that justification causes faith, in that the goal of the Spirit’s creation of faith is to bring us to justification. But the teleological sense is hardly used by anyone anymore as a use of the word “cause”, so I’m excluding it on grounds that it would confuse)

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  425. Jeff,

    Regarding WCF 11.4 and logical priority, my only point was that, while 11.4 tells us that justification does not actually take place until redemption is subjectively applied, it doesn’t tell us anything about the order (logical or otherwise) in which that application takes place.

    But here’s my issue: Does it make sense to talk about God making us alive in Christ (i.e., regenerating us) without having yet restored us to His favor (i.e., justifying us)?

    Of course, once we are effectually called/regenerated, we also exercise justifying faith (i.e., there’s no chronological priority involved), but if we want to make justification logically subsequent to regeneration, then we’re committed to a view that the first stages of the ordo take place without God having yet restored us to His favor, which seems problematic to me. What do you think?

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  426. David, you’re raising the issue I was thinking about in the shower this morning. The driving issue that I’ve heard now from several posters is that it is inconceivable for God to initiate the ordo without first making us (forensically) righteous.

    But in my view, this is a fundamental feature of our salvation: that God loves us while we are yet sinners; that he has mercy on us while we are yet sinners; that He translates us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

    So while I appreciate how troubling it might be that God might show favor to the unjustified, it also seems to me that Scripture rubs our noses in that very troubling fact and says, in essence, “Live with it. God shows mercy to sinners.”

    Or put another way: even if we take the Hodgian view, we still have the same troubling issue, but pushed back into election: How can God choose rank sinners to be His people?

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  427. David R., thanks. I’ve heard of moving targets but not of moving arsenals. First logical priority is antinomian. Now it’s semi-pelagian.

    I guess the point is that logical priority of justification is really, really bad.

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  428. Jeff, do you really mean to suggest that God has mercy on sinners without the shedding of blood? It seems to me the troubling fact of Christianity is that God would not spare his own son in order to show mercy to sinners. Still, no blood, no mercy. Hence the priority of the forensic. Hence the stupidity of the charge of semi-pelagianism.

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  429. DGH, I’m suggesting that the atonement, is different from the decree to elect, is different from justification.

    Which distinction, BTW, is blurred by the slogan “the priority of the forensic.”

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  430. Jeff, I don’t understand. I see that atonement, the eternal decree, and justification are distinct subjects. But how does that help your assertion, “live with it, God shows mercy to sinners.” Does live with it apply only to the decree, since atonement and justification show the mercy of God in the context of justifying the unjustified. I even think the same applies to the eternal decree, since the end of the decree was the salvation of sinners through a redeemer.

    So I don’t understand.

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  431. We can (and should) agree that the atonement is not the same as the justification, and that neither are the same as the decree to atone and justify. But that agreement does not eliminate the need to define what “appplication” of the atonement means. Or, as David R has said already, that still doesn’t tell us the order of the application. Is God’s imputation of the righteousness first or is God’s gift of faith first?

    Many would dismiss this discussion as much about nothing. Since none of us believe in eternal justification, and none of us deny the need for regeneration, who cares what is first? But obviously Titpon ( and the WCF as Jeff points out) cares. And we should care, because the question about order is a question about definition. How is the “reconciliation received” (Romans 5:11, 17)

    The Gaffinists (the unionists) always ASSUME that the application of reconciliation is by faith. But Berkhof and Hodge (and Horton, and Bruce McCormack) argue that the reconciliation is received by God’s imputation with faith as the immediate result. If you take a look at the two verses in question, you find a passive receiving. And there’s nothing more passive than a legally dead ungodly sinner being baptized by God (without hands) into the death of Christ.

    (It’s ironic that some of those who want to say that the passive receiving is faith are the very same folks who reject defining faith as assent and trust, and who include the “works of faith” in faith.)

    I sincerely don’t want to attribute bad motives to either side. I suppose Tipton is only saying that folks like Horton are unwitting “semi-Pelagians”. Does this mean that I can say that Tipton sometimes sound like they don’t believe that Christ’s atonement outside of us is the decisive difference between life and death?

    It sounds to me as if unionists are saying: sure, we agree with particular atonement, we don’t deny that, but right now let’s don’t talk about God’s justice and atonement, let’s just talk about God’s love and mercy. But as Dr Hart reminds us, there is never any love of God for sinners apart from the justice of Christ’s atonement. God is always both just AND justifier of the ungodly.

    If the ungodly are already “logically” believers before they are justified, they are already “logically” godly before they are justified.

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  432. Mark,

    What do you make of Calvin’s commentary on Rom 4.5 and Acts 15.9?

    Second, you argue, “If the ungodly are already “logically” believers before they are justified, they are already “logically” godly before they are justified.”

    This is actually faulty reasoning, assuming that faith = godliness. Faith receives and rests on Christ alone for justification, and as such (a) clearly must precede justification, and (b) is the instrument, not the substance, of our justification. We are not godly because faith is our godliness; we are declared righteous because faith receives the righteousness of Christ imputed to us.

    Your argument leaves out the imputation step and goes straight from faith to godliness as if the two were equivalent.

    —
    All:

    It’s very, very hard for me to square “justification precedes faith” with the Confessional teaching on saving faith, or indeed with Romans 4.5.

    —

    A little historical theology is needed here. AA Hodge is the earliest mention that I know of to even suggest that justification precedes faith. The elder Hodge, by contrast, says this:

    The common doctrine of Protestants on this subject is that faith is merely the instrumental cause of justification. It is the act of receiving and resting upon Christ, and has no other relation to the end than any other act by which a proffered good is accepted. This is clearly the doctrine of Scripture, (1.) Because we are constantly said to be justified by, or through faith. (2.) Because the faith which justifies is described as a looking, as a receiving, as a coming, as a fleeing for refuge, as a laying hold of, and as a calling upon. (3.) Because the ground to which our justification is referred, and that on which the sinner’s trust is placed, is declared to be the blood, the death, the righteousness, the obedience of Christ. (4.) Because the fact that Christ is a ransom, a sacrifice, and as such effects our salvation, of necessity supposes that the faith which interests us in the merit of his work is a simple act of trust. (5.) Because any 171other view of the case is inconsistent with the gratuitous nature of justification, with the honour of Christ, and with the comfort and confidence of the believer. — C Hodge, Systematic Theology vol 3, “The relation of faith to justification”

    And again,

    The Bible from first to last teaches that the whole ground of our salvation or of our justification is objective, what Christ as our Redeemer, our ransom, our sacrifice, our surety, has done for us. (ibid).

    Notice that Hodge distinguishes the atonement from our justification.

    If anyone has any earlier references to the view that justification precedes faith, I’d be interested.

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  433. Jeff,

    I’ll try to come up with someone earlier. I’m on the road and am thus limited to what I can find online. But in the meantime, here’s someone else later, an excerpt from a sermon by Vos, “The Spiritual Resurrection of Believers.” See what implications you draw from this:

    But if in the inmost being of such a person [one who is dead in sins] God, the Holy Spirit causes his irresistible call to be heard: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ win shine on you,” then the blind eyes are immediately opened, the deaf ears unstopped, and the hardened heart begins, with a lively interest, to seek after God and his fellowship. When the dry bones hear the word of the Lord, and the Spirit blows among them, look! There is noise and movement, they approach each other, bone to its bone; these receive sinews and flesh, and a skin to cover them and a spirit within them, and a human form appears.

    Such a creative deed, therefore, is necessary. A question, however, arises: Is this possible? Can God justly bestow this benefit on a sinner, dead in transgressions, by creating a new life in him?

    The answer to this must be a decisive “no.” God cannot do such a thing. It is true that his love is great and his mercy rich, but his justice is inviolable. It requires that the sinner be punished and that only the one who fulfills the demand of the law be rewarded. Justice draws its rigorous line without making distinctions between persons; on the left it assigns eternal death to the transgressor of the law and on the right eternal life to the keeper of the law.

    If a person dead in transgressions is to be raised up, two conditions must be met first. In the first place, he must be relieved of the burden of his guilt which rests on him because of his sins. He must bear the threatened punishment and empty to its dregs the cup of God’s holy displeasure. As long as this does not happen, despite God’s great love and rich mercy, there can be no talk of God showing favor to the sinner.

    But suppose that the punishment has been borne, the cup emptied—even that by itself is not enough. The justice of the law must be fulfilled, that is to say, it must be perfectly obeyed and observed. Only to the one who does this can God restore life and impart his Holy Spirit.

    To understand this clearly let us imagine a criminal who must bear the punishment of imprisonment designated by the law. When he is released after serving his sentence, the law has been satisfied. But is the criminal’s honor restored, have his civil rights been regained, can he count on all the privileges granted to someone who keeps the law without punishment? Of course not. Although the law cannot further require penal satisfaction from him, for the most part and all too often he finds himself without civil rights and honor, disgraced and an outcast in the midst of society.

    Exactly the same justice applies in the kingdom of God. Assume that the sinner is able himself to bear the punishment of his transgression, by bearing it completely so that nothing remains to be borne. This is not the case, but assume it for a moment. What then would follow? Would this be the end of the matter for the sinner? God’s wrath would be removed, but his favor would not be regained. The person would still be without citizenship and rights in God’s kingdom, he would still remain a beggar who has no claim to anything. The unyielding law, with its “Do this and you shall live,” would still stand—with its accusation that it has not been fulfilled and its strict prohibition against giving life to the sinner.

    You can immediately see where the great difficulty lies here. The law must be satisfied, because apart from keeping it there is no life. As far as we know, God does not grant eternal life to either angels or men on any other condition than perfect keeping of the law. But man cannot keep the law, he is dead in transgressions, spiritually impotent. If he is ever again to attain to keeping the law, it must be preceded by a creative act of God, by an infusion of life from God, whereby he is again put in a position to live according to the commandments of God.

    Thus, two things are firmly established: (1) God cannot make man alive from his spiritual death in sin, unless he has first fulfilled the law. (2) As long as God has not made man alive, he cannot fulfill the law.

    This crying contradiction demonstrates how hopeless the situation with man was. There was no solution in sight and it seemed there was nothing left for God to do but to abandon man to his miserable fate. And, indeed, if help would have had to come from man’s side, it would not have appeared, not even in an eternity!

    But through his great love God knew how to find a solution. He solved the riddle in a way that caused the angels to stare in wonder and the congregation on earth, in turn, to venture in joyful rapture before the heavenly authorities and powers. When the eye of God’s love could find no resting place in all of sinful humanity, then it rested upon Christ Jesus, his only begotten Son, and saw in him the possibility of unraveling the sad riddle.

    The Lord could not make us alive. We had forfeited the right to be made alive. There was no one who was worthy to be made alive—unless it be that the Son of God became man, and by becoming such, restored the possibility that man be made alive and be saved. To make us alive with Christ—that was the answer that God’s great love gave to the question raised by his mercy, otherwise there was no means by which sinners could be rescued from eternal destruction.

    The two conditions just discussed were present in Christ. He was able to wipe out the debt, and he did. At the same time, because he was not dead in transgressions, by his perfect keeping of the law he acquired the right to eternal life. Him God could raise up by his sublime power and bring back in immortality. And with that the great work was accomplished in principle. Certainly there was but one point of departure found for the spiritual resurrection, but that point lay in the Mediator Christ Jesus. With Christ it is therefore possible for God to raise us up also. He took upon himself the curse and the demands of the law, we reap the fruits together with Him. In his resurrection from the dead ours is given in fact and guaranteed by right. That new life, which he received as the reward for his obedience, passes over from him, by the working of his Spirit, to all that belong to him, so that they, awakened from the sleep of sin, let Christ shine on them, say “Amen” with a living faith to all God’s words of life, hunger and thirst after the righteousness of life, and end by praising God’s rich mercy, which, because of his great love, even when they were dead in their transgressions, made them alive with Christ, the Lord.

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  434. I don’t have the context, but Vos’s comments make perfect sense in terms of contrasting justification and sanctification, not justification and faith. Do you have reason to believe that Vos intends to say that God justifies prior to creating faith?

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  435. David R, what are your thoughts about this?

    Finally, our confession makes clear that faith (biblically understood) is an appropriating instrument, not something God sees in us which he then rewards.
    Since there is no merit in faith, but only in the object of faith–Jesus Christ, faith must seen as an instrument, a means of reception, which links to the saving merits which are found in Jesus Christ alone. As our confession notes [Belgic 22], “for faith is only the instrument by which we embrace Christ our righteousness; He imputes to us all His merits and as many holy works as He has done for us and in our place. Therefore Jesus Christ is our righteousness, and faith is the instrument that keeps us with Him in the communion of all His benefits. When those benefits have become ours, they are more than sufficient to acquit us of our sins.”

    As Warfield correctly points out,
    The place of faith in the process of salvation, as biblically conceived, could scarcely, therefore,
    be better described than by the use of the scholastic term `instrumental cause.’

    Faith is not the ground of our salvation in general, nor of our justification in particular. Faith is the means, or the instrument, through which we receive the righteousness of another, namely that of Jesus Christ … — Kim Riddlebarger, Sermon on Belgic Confession 22, emph added.

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  436. The sermon is easily accessible online. The question Vos is dealing with is: How can God justly raise a spiritually dead sinner to life (that is, regenerate him)?

    “If we have clearly understood all this, then it is also immediately evident that only a divine creation, a new birth is capable of changing the sinner, for he is dead. This is no metaphor, but a reality. A dead person is no more insensitive and motionless in the natural domain than a sinner is in the spiritual sense. Where death has entered, all human help and advice ceases.”

    “In the spiritual sphere it is just the same. Here the dead person is the sinner. Here at the same time is the means God has given us to use: the Word of God—a brightly shining light, a life-nourishing power. But it is impossible for the spiritually dead person to open his eyes to see that light and to open his mouth in order to ingest that nourishment, unless a higher power has caused him to awake from the slumber of unrighteousness.”

    “But if in the inmost being of such a person God, the Holy Spirit causes his irresistible call to be heard: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ win shine on you,” then the blind eyes are immediately opened, the deaf ears unstopped, and the hardened heart begins, with a lively interest, to seek after God and his fellowship.”

    The problem of course is that, in spite of God’s electing love, He cannot justly impart new life until (1) the punishment for sin has been borne and (2) the right to life merited.

    “A question, however, arises: Is this possible? Can God justly bestow this benefit on a sinner, dead in transgressions, by creating a new life in him?

    The answer to this must be a decisive “no.” God cannot do such a thing. It is true that his love is great and his mercy rich, but his justice is inviolable. It requires that the sinner be punished and that only the one who fulfills the demand of the law be rewarded. Justice draws its rigorous line without making distinctions between persons; on the left it assigns eternal death to the transgressor of the law and on the right eternal life to the keeper of the law.”

    “If a person dead in transgressions is to be raised up, two conditions must be met first. In the first place, he must be relieved of the burden of his guilt which rests on him because of his sins. He must bear the threatened punishment and empty to its dregs the cup of God’s holy displeasure.”

    “But suppose that the punishment has been borne, the cup emptied—even that by itself is not enough. The justice of the law must be fulfilled, that is to say, it must be perfectly obeyed and observed. Only to the one who does this can God restore life and impart his Holy Spirit.”

    “Thus, two things are firmly established: (1) God cannot make man alive from his spiritual death in sin, unless he has first fulfilled the law. (2) As long as God has not made man alive, he cannot fulfill the law.”

    The solution to the problem is found in the obedience and satisfaction of Christ.

    “The two conditions just discussed were present in Christ. He was able to wipe out the debt, and he did. At the same time, because he was not dead in transgressions, by his perfect keeping of the law he acquired the right to eternal life. Him God could raise up by his sublime power and bring back in immortality. And with that the great work was accomplished in principle. Certainly there was but one point of departure found for the spiritual resurrection, but that point lay in the Mediator Christ Jesus. With Christ it is therefore possible for God to raise us up also. He took upon himself the curse and the demands of the law, we reap the fruits together with Him. In his resurrection from the dead ours is given in fact and guaranteed by right.”

    So, I ask: What does this imply about the relative priority of justification and regeneration?

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  438. Jeff, your quotes on the role of faith in justification are pretty standard. On Witsius, yeah, he would help, but I can’t access my Economy of the Covenants volumes and alas, the google books preview is missing some of what I need….

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  439. Jeff, it sounds like you are asking me to repeat myself. On Calvin, I have agreed with Bruce McCormack that Calvin did put regeneration and faith before God’s imputation of righteousness. MCormack suggests that this is is an inconsistency in Calvin, and I agree with McCormack. If you really want to know what I already said about this, you could stroll back through this very long thread or I suppose I could do it for you.

    On receiving by faith, your response seems to confirm what I just wrote in my last post. No matter what we might say from Romans 5:11 and 17 about “receiving by imputation”, you are simply going to ignore it and assume that any receiving is by faith. Yes, I know that you don’t think that faith is the righteousness, but you do think–with the majority for sure–that faith is the instrumental condition which must precede in time God’s imputation of the righteousness.

    I would ask you to check John Murray on Romans 5:11 and 17, not for a theology of instrumental and meritorious causes, but to see that there is such a thing as a receiving which is not faith. You need to stop assuming that, and then we can return to Horton’s distinction that says how legal union with Christ is not regeneration by the Spirit indwelling us.

    In the meanwhile, here’s what I just wrote above:

    How is the “reconciliation received” (Romans 5:11, 17)
    The Gaffinists (the unionists) always ASSUME that the application of reconciliation is by faith. But Berkhof and Hodge (and Horton, and Bruce McCormack) argue that the reconciliation is received by God’s imputation with faith as the immediate result. If you take a look at the two verses in question, you find a passive receiving. And there’s nothing more passive than a legally dead ungodly sinner being baptized by God (without hands) into the death of Christ.

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  440. Cunha, The Emperor’s New Clothes, p82–”if the new birth casually precedes faith, which is the alone instrument of justification, doesn’t this mean that creative work of God’s Spirit within a man, regeneration, precedes a legal change in status, justification, in the application of redemption? Yes, it does….Whatever is made of the fact that the new birth precedes faith, the Biblical definition of faith must not be altered in order to accommodate a preconceived notion that the forensic act of justification cannot be preceded causally by the actual change produced within a man…To say, for example, that faith is merely the awareness of justification that has occurred prior to faith is to define faith in a way that is foreign to Scripture.”

    Although I don’t agree with Cunha about the work of the Spirit preceding the legal change, I do agree with him that a. justification of the ungodly is through faith and b. this faith is not a knowledge of our having already been justified.

    We must say these two things not only because the Confessions say them, but also because the Scriptures say them. But neither Jeff nor Cunha should assume ( with the majority tradition) that the “instrument” of faith precedes the imputation. I agree with Horton that we can and should say that “hearing” is the immediate effect of God’s imputation, since the life of regeneration is the immediate effect of God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

    God’s word about God’s righteousness (Romans 10) creates our hearing. It’s not God’s giving us faith which then causes Christ’s righteousness to then be effective for us. II Peter 2:1

    I question (deny) that the imputation is “the result of faith”. Since the gift of faith was purchased by Christ, how could it be given before Christ’s righteousness is imputed? And even if faith were first before imputation, hopefully Jeff you would agree that the work of the Spirit giving (not imputing!) faith is a logical RESULT of the righteousness imputed.

    Jeff suggests the possibility of having faith but still being ungodly. I agree that we should not look elsewhere than to legal imputation to determine godly or ungodly. To have been imputed with Christ’s righteousness (“become the righteousness of God in Christ”) is to have been declared godly.

    But if the elect are born again before they are justified, then that at least looks like they are justified BECAUSE they are born again, and that would be to locate being “godly” in what the Spirit does in us rather than what Christ did apart from us, outside us, over there, back then.

    How can you have a born again person who is not yet godly? But how can you have a justified person who is not yet born again? Nobody is trying to deny either regeneration or justification. And most of us are also trying not to confuse regeneration and justification.

    But some of us keep asking questions when “union” gets defined as both the justification and the regeneration (receiving by imputation and also receiving by faith), but then later it keeps turning out that “union” means only the regeneration and “justification” is what comes after this “union”. It keeps turning out that the union is by faith, and thus not legal, but leads to the legal.

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  441. Mark,

    I wasn’t asking you to repeat yourself so much as shore up your arguments. You’ve said a couple of things above that are helpful.

    First, I appreciate the fact that you concede that the “justification-before-faith” view is a minority view. Up to this point, I’ve been trying to point this out to no avail. So, thank you.

    Second, you place the core argument to the fore, much as Hodge does. It is a “How Can?” argument:

    How can you have a born-again person who is not yet godly? You can’t. Ergo, the person born-again must first be made godly.

    This is, in fact, the *only* argument that has been put forward in support of the justification-first position.

    I would suggest that the force of this argument is considerably weakened when you realize that all manner of How Can? arguments can be made:

    * How can God have love for sinners to elect them to become His children? He can’t. Ergo, they must have been justified from eternity. (Kuyper)
    * How can God declare someone righteous when his actions are patently unrighteous? He can’t. Ergo, their justification must be a declaration of their actual righteousness. (the RCC)

    and so on.

    As to “assuming” — I will concede that I do believe that when the Scripture says “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.” (λογιζομεθα ουν πιστει δικαιουσθαι ανθρωπον χωρις εργων νομου), that πιστει is the dative of instrument.

    From this, it would follow that faith is the instrument of justification, from which it must follow that faith precedes justification.

    But it’s not a fiat assumption, no.

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  442. So Jeff do you plan to keep on ignoring what John Murray said about “receiving by imputation” in Romans 5:11 and 17? It’s absurd that you think the only argument has been about being “godly” before the new birth. Indeed, I have agreed with you (and Cunha) that “godly” has to do with imputed righteousness and not with faith. Did you see that? Do you hear it? As Cunha explained, just because it might be “odd” for God to give faith before imputation, that itself does not prove that God doesn’t do odd things. After all, God imputed righteousness to Abraham a long time before Christ obtained that righteousness.

    It’s a distraction for you to point to Kuyper and others who taught eternal justification. I do not, and I have consistently agreed that there is no such thing as a justified person who is not born again. Justification is through faith. While I am not attached to the “instrument” word (I stand with first London Baptist Confession), saying “instrument” does not necessarily mean “preceding the imputation”. Saying “through faith” does not mean that faith is some kind of condition before God can impute. But that seems to be exactly what you continue to assume.

    Your position is that (logically) there is such a thing as a regenerate believing person who is not yet justified, not yet imputed with righteousness. Not only is that “odd”, but you have not demonstrated it to be the case. Unless of course you think being in the majority on the question is all you need.

    Sure, I have to keep reassuring people that I do believe in regeneration. But Jeff, I want you to reassure us that God’s love for the elect is never apart from God’s justice in Christ’s atonement. The new birth is not logically prior to God’s righteousness. II Peter 1:1–to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savour Jesus Christ.

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  443. Jeff,

    Here’s an interesting passage from Ursinus’s commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism. Let me know what you make of it. He’s dealing with the question, “How does the satisfaction of Christ become our righteousness, seeing that it is without us?”

    At first view it seems absurd that we should be justified by anything without us, or by something that belongs to another. It is necessary, therefore, that we should explain more fully how the satisfaction, or obedience of Christ becomes ours; for unless it be made ours, or be applied unto us, we cannot be justified by it, just as little as a wall can be white, if whiteness be not applied, or fixed upon it. We remark, then, that there are two ways in which the satisfaction of Christ is made over unto us: 1. God himself applies it unto us, that is, he makes the righteousness of Christ over unto us, and accepts of us as righteous on account of it, as if it were ours. 2. We apply it also unto ourselves when we receive the righteousness of Christ through faith, that is, we rest assured that God will grant it unto us, that he will regard us as righteous on account of it, and that he will free us from all guilt. There is, therefore, a double application; one in respect to God, and another in respect to us. The former is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, when God accepts of that righteousness which Christ wrought out, that it might avail in our behalf, and accounts us as righteous in view of it, as much so as if we had never sinned, or had at least fully satisfied for our sins. The other side of this application which has respect to us, is the act itself of believing, in which we are fully persuaded that it is imputed and given unto us. Both sides of this application must necessarily concur in our justification; for God applies the righteousness of Christ unto us upon the condition, that we also apply the same unto ourselves by faith. For although any one were to offer another a benefit, yet if he to whom it is offered does not accept of it, it is not applied unto him, and so does not become his. Hence without this last application the former is of no account. And yet our application of the righteousness of Christ is from God; for he first imputes it unto us, and then works faith in us, by which we apply unto ourselves that which is imputed; from which it appears that the application of God precedes that which we make, (which is of faith) and is the cause of it, although it is not without ours, as Christ says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:16).

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  444. Mark,

    No need to be rude. We’re all doing the best we can here, and I certainly don’t “plan on ignoring” things.

    But Jeff, I want you to reassure us that God’s love for the elect is never apart from God’s justice in Christ’s atonement.

    Yes, I agree. The atonement is logically prior to our regeneration. In fact, I would go further and say that for even the OT saints, the fact that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world was the ground of God’s regeneration of them.

    Or put another way: Our faith requires an object, and that object is the death of Christ on our behalf.

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  445. David, very interesting, and more persuasive even than Hodge.

    I’ve read that section before, in reference to union; you’re putting in a new light. More to chew on, together with Vos.

    I’ll get back to you.

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  446. Christ’s propitiation and the justification of the elect are different events in history. But that does not mean that justification is conditioned on the faith that God gives the elect.

    Most Calvinists have not yet considered the idea of a “justification through faith” in which the regeneration and faith of the elect are the immediate result of God’s imputation (a declarative act in history) of Christ’s righteousness so that another elect person is then justified, passing from life to death..

    Of course most all Calvinists have heard of federal union (which they may equate with eternal justification), but they seem to see no other alternative to a justification “instrumentally” conditioned on what God first does in the elect sinner in causing that sinner to believe. (But see the essays by Bruce McCormack and Mike Horton about Calvin putting regeneration in first place before justification, or see Edward Boehl’s discussion of John Owen in his The Reformed Doctrine of Justification.)

    Why can’t justification be by faith without faith being before God’s imputation?

    Faith is the immediate result of imputation, not its condition. We believe the gospel, not knowing if we are elect. We believe the gospel, knowing from the gospel that our believing is not the condition of either election or or the atonement or of our justification. Original guilt from Adam is not received by a human act but by God’s imputation. Christ’s righteousness is received by God’s imputation and results in life.

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  447. I just changed one word, and the previous post double-posted, and I don’ t think I can fix it. Sorry. Can somebody get me out of that fix?

    Clair David from his essay, “Systematics, Spirituality and the Christian Life”, in the volume The Pattern of Sound Doctrine.

    p276–”Reformed Christians had agreed that SOMETHING had to precede faith in Christ. But what did regeneration before faith mean? Did it intend to say that there was a chronological, temporal sequence through which people coming to Christ ordinarily passed?

    “Did they intend to say that people could be regenerate unbelievers, in the sense that they became regenerate years before becoming believers? It sounded that way.But when the theologians had discussed the order of salvation, they were thinking of a logical sequence, not an experiential one. Since one is truly dead in sin, of course he must first be brought to life.But that does not mean that new life could be present before faith was exercised.

    “It definitely was not intending to send the message that before you even begin thinking about trusting Christ, you need to first determine that you are able to.The order,which in its original form in Romans 8 was intended to provide encouragement during persecution and suffering, had been turned on its head, twisted, and had become a threatening word: don’t you dare try to trust Christ until you’re sure you have a transformed heart.”

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  448. Clair Davis, p278, What should the sinner do? Should he come in faith to Christ? Or is it better to tell him to pray for a new heart? What does faith look like, if it’s placed after regeneration but before justification? As far as justification is concerned, faith is passive and extra-spective, not looking to itself but only to Jesus Christ. But from the direction of regeneration, faith is lively and transformed. Can faith be both passive and lively? Not if ordinary definitions are used. Properly understood, faith expresses such a radical heart transformation that it no longer looks to itself at all, but only and always to Christ.

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  449. Here’s John Owen wrestling with the same issue. This is excerpted from Of the Death of Christ:

    I offer [suggest], also, whether absolution from the guilt of sin and obligation unto death, though not as terminated in the conscience for complete justification, do not precede our actual believing; for what is that love of God which through Christ is effectual to bestow faith upon the unbelieving? and how can so great love, in the actual exercise of it, producing the most distinguishing mercies, consist with any such act of God’s will as at the same instant should bind that person under the guilt of sin?

    Perhaps, also, this may be the justification of the ungodly, mentioned Romans 4:5, God’s absolving a sinner in heaven, by accounting Christ unto him, and then bestowing him upon him, and for his sake enduing him with faith to believe.

    That we should be blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, and yet Christ not be ours in a peculiar manner before the bestowing of those blessings on us, is somewhat strange. Yea, he must be our Christ before it is given to us for him to believe; why else is it not given to all others so to do? I speak not of the supreme distinguishing cause, Matthew 11:25, 26, but of the proximate procuring cause, which is the blood of Christ. Neither yet do I hence assert complete justification to be before believing.

    Absolution in heaven, and justification, differ as part and whole.

    Again: absolution may be considered either as a pure act of the will of God in itself, or as it is received, believed, apprehended, in and by the soul of the guilty. For absolution in the first sense, it is evident it must precede believing; as a discharge from the effects of anger naturally precedes all collation of any fruits of love, such as is faith.

    But if God account Christ unto, and bestow him upon, a sinner before believing, and upon that account absolve him from the obligation unto death and hell, which for sin he lies under, what wants this of complete justification?

    Much every way. 1. It wants that act of pardoning mercy on the part of God which is to be terminated and completed in the conscience of the sinner; this lies in the promise. 2. It wants the heart’s persuasion concerning the truth and goodness of the promise, and the mercy held out in the promise. 3. It wants the soul’s rolling itself upon Christ, and receiving of Christ as the author and finisher of that mercy, an all-sufficient Savior to them that believe.

    So that by faith alone we obtain and receive the forgiveness of sin; for notwithstanding any antecedent act of God concerning us, in and for Christ, we do not actually receive a complete soul-freeing discharge until we believe.

    And thus the Lord Christ hath the pre-eminence in all things. He is “the author and finisher of our faith.”

    This, then, is that which here we assign unto the Lord: Upon the accomplishment of the appointed season for the making out the fruits of the death of Christ unto them for whom he died, he loves them freely, says to them, “Live;” gives them his Son, and with and for him all things; bringing forth the choicest issue of his being reconciled in the blood of Jesus whilst we are enemies, and totally alienated from him.

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  450. Hi David,

    I haven’t forgotten about you.

    It’s my hope to give a fuller treatment at some point. I will say this: the evidence you have produced has persuaded me that the view “justification causes faith” is not a theological novelty.

    So to that extent, I feel less alarmed about your position (together with RL and Mark McC., and perhaps Zrim as well) — though we might disagree on it, I can see and acknowledge that it has a legitimate history in the Reformed tradition.

    That said, I do still disagree that Scripture in any way indicates the kind of picture that Owens and Ursinus presents, that we receive faith by virtue of our justification.

    At some point in the future, Lord willing, perhaps we can interact on this some more.

    Regards,
    Jeff

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  451. Notice that John Owen is not teaching that the elect are free from condemnation before being legally “baptized into Christ”. Although John Owen taught that God only imputed the sins of the elect to Christ, John Owen did not teach that all the elect were justified as soon as Christ bore those sins. Owen taught with Romans 6 that the elect must come into legal union with Christ’s death. Until God legally puts the elect into Christ’s death, even the elect remain under the wrath of God.

    But those who want to prioritize the indwelling of Christ and the presence of faith over legal imputation often accuse John Owen and others of thinking there is no need for faith. They claim that if we put imputation logically before faith, then it is no longer logical to teach a need for faith. Or they assume that John Owen makes faith into a mere recognition of an already existing justification.

    This accusation sounds much like that of Arminians who tell us that, if the substitution has already been made at the cross, then all for whom it was made should logically already be justified at the cross. If the righteousness has already been obtained, then all for whom it was earned should logically already be justified by it. But clearly John Owen is NOT teaching that, and it certainly not be assumed that all who disagree with the priority of “Christ in” over the “in Christ” are teaching any such thing as justification without faith.

    It’s clear that John Owen did not teach justification apart from faith. It’s also clear that John Owen did not teach that faith was a mere recognition that we were already justified. (See Carl Trueman’s Claims of Truth for more on this topic, and the accusations of Allan Clifford).

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  452. Union with Christ: In Scripture, History, and Theology, by Robert Letham, Presbyterian and Reformed, 2011

    “Space prevents me from recent discussions of the relationship between union with Christ and justification.” (p82). This is why this book is so disappointing. Letham does not use his space is a wise and helpful way. He merely keeps begging the question and repeating himself. “Faith-union is by faith” seems to be his conclusion, and that is not a very useful explanation of anything.

    Even though Letham relies on Evans and Garcia, he avoids interaction with recent discussions by Fesko, Horton, and McCormack on the priority of forensic justification. Letham persists in saying that “union” is “more basic” with indifference to the specific arguments. His view is “robust”; those who disagree with him (with whom he disdains to interact) are “gnostic” (p139)

    See for example, his discussion of Hodge: “the focus was on the forensic, on justification and the atonement. The gospel was to be clear and comprehensible. An unfortunate split had occurred in Reformed thought.In part,it explains how the doctrine of union with Christ suffered eclipse.” (p122)

    Letham sits too high above the controversies to attend to the contested details, and this helps him to think that his own view of union is “the doctrine of union”. This pose does not help him to be clear and comprehensible, but perhaps it means that he worships a God who is “more than” the God other people know.

    Letham simply assumes that the Holy Spirit is “the agent of the indwelling”. (p49) He is not content with the idea that Christ indwells the justified sinner, or with the idea that the Holy Spirit indwells the justified sinner. Without any exegesis of any text, he simply asserts that the Spirit puts Christ in the justified sinner.

    “The Holy Spirit baptizes all believers into one body.” (p50) But what biblical text says this? Letham quotes I Cor 12:13 correctly–”in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” The text does not say that the Holy Spirit is the baptizer, or the “more basic” agent, but Letham simply presumes this notion throughout his space.

    Since the Spirit gives faith to the elect, Letham thinks this faith has to be that which unites the elect to Christ, and thus he stays with the tradition that says it’s the Spirit who unites the elect to Christ.

    The elect’s union in Christ was not by the Spirit, but this does not keep Letham from giving the Spirit the priority. The following quotation from Letham summarizes his basic assumption: “Not only is Christ our substitute and representative, acting in our place and on our behalf, but we are one with him. The work is ours because we are on the same team. If the goaltender makes a blunder, the whole team loses the game…In a similar way, Christ has made atonement and won the victory for his team, while in turn the Holy Spirit selects us for his team.” (p53)

    I don’t need to say anything about the Torrances or Karl Barth here. You don’t need to have read Evans and Garcia to follow. The Holy Spirit is NOT choosing individuals to be on the team in some different way than the Trinity has elected individuals.

    The Holy Spirit is not selecting individuals to be on the team in a way that the Son has not. Even though individuals are chosen in Christ, Christ is not simply the means election is executed. Christ already (before the ages) elected individuals to be saved from God’s wrath, and the Holy Spirit does not do that now.

    The trend of Letham’s thought is not only to get us not to think about individuals but about “the church” (the team) but also to get us to think about the atonement as what happens when the Spirit “unites” us to Christ. Instead of some idea of an reconciliation which was obtained by Christ “back then and there”, Letham is substituting a notion of “union” as much more basic than substitution, atonement,and justification.

    Instead of defining “union” as the legal receiving (by imputation, Romans 5:11, 17), Letham simply assumes that “union” is by faith. In this way, Letham makes the Father’s present legal application of what Christ did to be much less basic than the Holy Spirit’s present work. He plays down the Trinity’s legal acts of justification in present history and gives the priority to the Holy Spirit “selecting the team”.

    I Corinthians 1:30–”God is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

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  453. II Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live would no longer live for themselves but who for themselves for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

    We can think about a “for” which is not substitution. I can score a goal for my team, without any idea that I am the only one playing the game. I score the goal for the sake of others on my team, and not only for myself, but that does not mean they do nothing and I do everything. In II Corinthians 5:14-15, it is not the “for” which get us to the idea of substitution. What gets us to substitution is “therefore all died”.

    It is a mistake to reference the “died with” to a “faith-union” given by the Holy Spirit. The idea is not that Christ died one kind of death and as a result the Holy Spirit selects and unites some to Christ. The idea is not that Christ rose again from death and as a result the Holy Spirit “pours the power of Christ into” believers. (p103)

    The Romans 6 idea of “died with Christ”, the II Corinthians 5:15 idea of “therefore all died” is that Christ died to propitiate God’s wrath because of ALREADY IMPUTED SINS, and that this death is credited by God to the elect.

    The elect do not (and did not) die this kind of death. Their substitute replaced them and died it for them. Christ alone, in both His Deity and His Humanity, by Himself, without the rest of humanity, died this death. Christ the Elect One, without the elect, died this death that God’s law required.

    Letham rightly asks questions about the priority of regeneration to justification. (p74) But he continually puts faith in priority to justification and thus puts his idea of “union” in priority to justification. But what is this “faith-union” if not regeneration?

    What has Letham gained in clarity since he still has an order of salvation? If the Spirit is the one who connects you to redemptive history, then legal imputation has to take second place. And why can’t we respond to his accusations about “bifurcations” (p122) by noticing his own? Letham simply assumes that his own doctrine of union is “integrated” the right way.

    Letham says: not only is Christ our substitute, BUT we are one with Him. I say: the way we are one with Christ is that Christ is our legal substitute. I do not deny that the Son baptizes in the Spirit or that the Spirit indwells the justified sinner, but this gift by the Son is based on a legal union with Christ’s death and that legal union has logical priority.

    The elect belong to Christ because the Father gave the elect to Christ, and also because Christ died for and in the place of, instead of the elect. This is what “died with Christ” means.

    Christ will give the elect to the Father. Letham worries some about Calvin’s comments on I Corinthians 15:27 and the handover of the Kingdom to the Father. Letham worries that Calvin sounds Nestorian (handing over the humanity to the divinity) in this regard. (p39, 114)

    For my part, I am concerned that Letham is not attending to the difference between the elect’s sins being punished at the cross and the new view that these sins are only punished once the Holy Spirit “selects the elect” and then “unites” them to Christ.

    Make no mistake. I do not equate the atonement and justification. Though the decree is eternal, neither the atonement or justification is eternal. And the atonement is not our justification. What Christ obtained for the elect has to be legally imputed (not by the Spirit) to the elect so that they are justified in time. But these redemptive-historical distinctions do not mean that we should confuse “union with Christ” with the atonement.

    The atonement already happened. And “union with Christ” is the legal application (imputation) of that atonement when God the Trinity “baptized into Christ’s death” so that “we died to sin” (Romans 6:2) For one who has died had been justified from sin. (6:7) For the death that Christ died He died to sin. (6:10) For sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under law. (6:14) “We died to sin” is God’s legal act of justification of individuals.

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  454. Mark,

    Thanks for the posts.

    So if I understand your position:

    (1) Prior to faith, the Spirit imputes our sins to Christ. This justifies the unrighteous man.
    (2) That justification is then the legal basis upon which the Spirit creates faith in us.
    (3) And faith brings our justification into our consciousness.

    Am I correctly representing the view? David R, and RL if you’re still there, does this represent your views also?

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  455. 1. The Holy Spirit does not impute righteousness. God the Father (on behalf of the Trinity) is the one who justifies. God the Father calls the elect, and in the hearing of the gospel, creates faith by the Spirit. But this giving of faith is not to be confused with imputation. Faith is not imputed.

    2. But there are two legal acts by God the Father. One imputation is before the death of Christ, so that Christ’s death is for the sins of the elect. The meaning and intention of Christ’s death is not assigned later. We don’t talk about Christ first, without talking about the atonement and election. we don’t talk about the atonement first, without talking about election.

    3. But even though Christ the surety for the elect has borne their sins, the elect are still born in time under sin, wrath, and death. There must be a second legal act by God the Father, where God justifies these elect by crediting Christ’s righteousness (finished in His death) to these elect. This is what I am calling legal union.

    Righteousness obtained is one thing, and the imputing of that righteousness is another thing, and only when the elect are “in Christ’s death” by justification are they no longer condemned. Of course they were in Christ by election before justification, which is why Christ made atonement for them and not for the non-elect.

    4. Jeff, I am trying to give short simple answers, without repeating myself, and without bringing in again the relevant Scriptures and quotations from those who teach the priority of the forensic. But on no account should you think that I am saying that the Spirit is the one who imputes anything. Christ baptizes with the Spirit. The Spirit does not baptize into Christ. The elect are not “in Christ” by means of eucharistic feeding or by the Spirit pouring Christ’s power into them. ( On some other thread perhaps, we can discuss how Christ is “in us”.)

    5. I would not say that “justification” is the basis by which the Spirit creates faith. Two reasons, A. There is no justification apart from faith. Without effectual calling, hearing of the gospel, there is no justification. Justification is through faith, and this means that faith is not the cause but the result of righteousness imputed. B. I have anticipated this, but RIGHTEOUSNESS is the basis by which the Spirit creates faith. Remember, righteousness obtained and righteousness received by imputation are two different legal “moments”.

    I beg your patience. But let me simply quote my some texts again. Romans 8:10–the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Galatians 4:6–because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. II Peter 1:1–To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savour Jesus Christ.

    6.While I don’t want to deny that the faith involved in justification is in our consciousness, I want to make it clear again that this faith is not merely some kind of recognition that we have been justified from eternity. No, even the elect were objectively condemned by God, under God’s wrath, even though their future justification was certain because of God’s sovereign righteousness. In other words, the gospel commands faith in Christ’s death. The gospel does not command anyone to think they are elect before they believe, or to attempt to find out if they are regenerate before they believe. Nobody can know that they are justified before they believe the gospel.

    Jeff, I hope I have not taken too much time with what I am NOT saying. But your last post makes me want to communicate as clearly as I can. Normally, I might think somebody was deliberately attempting to caricature what I wrote. But in your case, Jeff, you have demonstrated enough patience with me to at least make me try one more time to be clear.

    I think we agree that election and atonement and justification at not the same thing, and don’t happen at the same time. I think we agree that there is no justification apart from faith in the gospel. But we seem to disagree about faith being before God’s imputation of Christ’s righteousness. Jeff, have you read the Letham book yet? What about the Billings?

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  456. Mark, thank you for your patience. Keep in mind that prior to RL and Zrim, I had never, ever encountered anyone who believed that imputation is prior to faith. So I’m legitimately asking (perhaps dumb) questions in order to get a clear picture.

    I’m in agreement with all five sentences in point 1.

    If I understand 2, you are saying that the sins of the elect are assigned to Christ before the foundation of the world. I would agree, though it is also possible to say that the historical moment of the cross was the historical moment that atonement was made.

    I’m in agreement with your description of legal union in 3.

    I’m confused by your sentence, “Righteousness obtained is one thing, and the imputing of that righteousness is another thing…” In my view, imputation *is* the obtaining of the righteousness by which we are justified. But I might not be understanding you.

    5. is where we hit the sticky wicket. You say, “Justification is through faith, and this means that faith is not the cause but the result of righteousness imputed.”

    That’s not a familiar use of the word “through” for me.

    And indeed, the Greek seems to be using a straightforward dative of instrument when the Scripture says that we are justified by faith apart from works (Rom 3.23).

    So once we get past the understanding phase of the discussion and into the actual arguments, this is one major point that you will need to address. Just a heads-up.

    I note again your emphasis: “Remember, righteousness obtained and righteousness received by imputation are two different legal “moments”.”, which goes back to my confusion in #4.

    I agree with all of the sentences in 6. and recognize that you are not arguing for eternal justification.

    —

    To sum up: I don’t understand the distinction you are making between obtaining righteousness, on the one hand, and having righteousness imputed to us, on the other.

    —

    Ursinus, in the quote David supplied from Comm HC, presents the order thus:

    * Christ is made ours
    * Then faith
    * Then we apply Christ to ourselves. (“A double application; one in respect to God, and another in respect to us”)

    Owens is quite similar:

    * Absolute, the accounting of our sins to Christ and being reckoned as forgiven
    * The fruits of love, including faith
    * Our justification made known to our conscience.

    Are you in agreement with the basic scheme laid out by these two?

    —

    I have not yet read Letham or Billings. My current reading list is “Numerical Methods, 9th ed.”

    First up after that will be the Bruce McCormack article, if I can lay hands on it, and then Horton.

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  457. Jeff: I’m confused by your sentence, “Righteousness obtained is one thing, and the imputing of that righteousness is another thing…” In my view, imputation *is* the obtaining of the righteousness by which we are justified. But I might not be understanding you.

    mark: correct, you are not understanding, and I can see now what I needed to say. Righteousness was obtained by Christ for the elect. Christ “brought in a righteousness”. (Daniel 9:24) I was not talking about when the elect obtained the righteousness, but about when Christ accomplished it.

    The elect obtain this righteousness by God the Father’s imputation. Jeff, if I understand what you say above, you agree with me that it’s not the Spirit who imputes.

    So the difference between us is about the logical priority of instrumental faith and God’s imputation. You think, as did Calvin, that regeneration and faith must precede God’s imputation. I think that justification of the ungodly means that God’s imputation is the legal cause of regeneration and faith. Faith being instrumental, justification being through faith, does not demand that “union by faith” precedes justification.

    As for John Owen and Ursinus, the phrases reported are not defined in your post enough to know what they mean. For example, “Christ is made ours” I assume means is “made the elect’s” but what does that mean? Does it refer to eternal election, or to the decree to impute the sins of the elect to Christ, or to God’s imputing of the sins of the elect to Christ, or to God’s baptizing the elect into the death of Christ?

    Also I don’t know what the difference would be between faith and “applying to ourselves”. Even though assurance is of the essence of faith, there is such a thing as “reflex faith” which only knows (or could know) that we believe the gospel after we have believed the gospel. This assurance in faith had its beginning in justification, before we knew we were justified, when we knew we needed to be justified.

    To go back to the distinction between redemption obtained (by Christ) and redemption distributed (by imputation), this is the difference between reconciliation by the “merits of the work of Christ” and the elect coming into legal solidarity with those merits. The righteousness which still belongs to Christ the elect come to share in. Romans 5:11–“we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

    The receiving of reconciliation is not the reconciliation. Christ’s reconciliation is what I mean by “obtained”. The legal receiving is what I mean by imputation.

    I really do recommend the Mccormack essay in the IVP volume, What’s at Stake?

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  458. I would recommend the following from John Gill’s God’s Everlasting Love to His Elect, and Their Eternal Union with Christ. I stop the quotation where I begin to disagree with Gill, when he argues that legal justification is eternal also.

    “What we are most likely to differ about, is, when God’s elect are united to Christ, and what is the bond of their union to him. It is generally said that they are not united to Christ until they believe, and that the bond of union is the Spirit on Christ’s part, and faith on ours.

    I am ready to think that these phrases are taken up by divines, one from another, without a thorough consideration of them. It is well, indeed, that Christ is allowed any part or share in effecting our union with him; though one should think the whole of it ought to be ascribed to him, since it is such an instance of surprising love and grace, than which there cannot well be thought to be a greater.

    Why must this union he pieced up with faith on our part? This smells so prodigious rank of self, that one may justly suspect that something rotten and nauseous lies at the bottom of it. I shall therefore undertake to prove, that the bond of union of God’s elect to Christ, is neither the Spirit on Christ’s part, nor faith on their part.

    1. It is not the Spirit on Christ’s part. The mission of the Spirit into the hearts of Cod’s elect, to regenerate, quicken, and sanctify them, to apply the blessings of grace to them, and seal them up to the day of redemption, and the bestowing of his several gifts and graces upon them, are in consequence, and by virtue of a previous and antecedent union of them to the Person of Christ.

    They do not first receive the Spirit of Christ, and then by the Spirit are united to him; but they are first united to him, and, by virtue of this union, receive the Spirit of him… A person is first joined, glued, closely united to Christ, and then becomes one Spirit with him; that is, receives, enjoys, and possesses in measure, the same Spirit as he does, as the members of an human body do participate of the same spirit the head does, to which they are united: he that is joined unto the Lord, is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).

    The case is this; Christ, as the Mediator of the covenant, and Head of God’s elect, received the Spirit without measure, that is, a fullness of the gifts and graces of the Spirit: These persons being united to Christ, as members to their Head, do, in his own TIME receive the Spirit from him, though in measure. They are first chosen in him, adopted through him, made one with him, become heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; and then, as the apostle says, Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Gal. 4:6).

    Besides, the Spirit of God, in his personal inhabitation in the saints, in the operations of his grace on their hearts, is the evidence, and not the bond of their union to God or Christ, and of their communion with them: For hereby we know, says the apostle John (1 John 3:24), that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us…

    2. Neither is faith the bond of union to Christ. Those who plead for union by faith, would do well to tell us whether we are united to Christ, by the habit or principle of faith implanted, or by the act of faith; and since there are different acts of faith, they should tell us by which our union is, and whether by the first, second, third, &c. acts of believing…

    if we are united to Christ by faith, as an act of ours, then we are united to Christ by a work, for faith, as an act of ours, is a work; and if by a work, then not by grace; for, if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace; but if it be of works, then is it no more grace, otherwise work is no more work (Rom. 11:6).

    I have often wondered that our divines should fix upon the grace of faith to be the bond of union to Christ, when there is nothing in it that is of a cementing and uniting nature: it is not a grace of union but of communion. Had they pitched upon the grace of love, as the bond of union, it would have appeared much more plausible; for love is of a knitting and uniting nature; it is the bond of friendship among men…

    Faith is no uniting grace, nor are any of its acts of a cementing nature. Faith indeed looks to Christ, lays hold on him, embraces him, and cleaves unto him; it expects and receives all from Christ, and gives him all the glory; but then hereby a person can no more be said to be united to Christ, than a beggar may be said to be united to a person to whom he applies, of whom he expects alms, from whom he receives, and to whom he is thankful.

    Faith is a grace of communion, by which Christ dwells in the hearts of his people, which is an act (of) fellowship, as a fruit of union, by which believers live on Christ, receive of his fullness, grace for grace, and walk on in him as they have received him. Union to Christ is the foundation of faith, and of all the acts of believing, as seeing, walking, receiving, &c. A man may as well be said to see, walk, and receive without his head, or without union to it, as one can be said to believe, that is, to see, walk, and receive in a spiritual sense, without the head, Christ; or as an antecedent to union to him, or, in order to it.

    To talk of faith in Christ before union to Christ, is a most preposterous, absurd, and irrational notion…

    There must be a principle of spiritual life before there can be any faith, or the exercise of it. There must be first a vital union to Christ, before there can be any believing in him. This is fitly and fully exemplified in the simile of the vine and branches, which Christ makes use of to express the union of his people to him: Abide in me, and I in you, says he (John 15:4, 5), as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. 1 am the Vine, ye are the branches he that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

    Now faith is a fruit of the Spirit, which grows upon the branches, that are in Christ the Vine; but then these branches must first be in the vine, before they bear this fruit; for the root of the righteous yieldeth fruit (Prov. 12:12). The branches of the wild olive tree must first be engrafted into the good olive tree, become one with it, and so partake of the root and fatness of it, before they can bring forth good fruit. Could there be the fruit of faith in Christ’s people before their union to him, then the branches would bear fruit without the vine, without being in it, or united to it, contrary to our Lord’s express words.

    From the whole, it may safely be concluded, that union to Christ is before faith, and therefore faith cannot be the bond of union; no, not on our part. Vital union is before faith. There always was a fulness of life laid up and reserved for all those who were chosen in Christ; there was always life in Christ the Head for all his members, which he, when it pleases him, in regeneration, communicates to them, and implants in them, though there is no activity or exercise of this life until they believe.

    The everlasting love of God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, is the bond of the elect’s union to the sacred Three. What may he said of the three divine Persons in general, is true of each of them in particular. They have all three loved the elect with an everlasting love, and thereby have firmly and everlastingly united them to themselves. Christ has loved them with an everlasting and unchangeable love.

    This is that cement which will never loosen, that union knot which can never be untied, that bond which can never be dissolved, from whence there can be no separation; for who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am persuaded, says the apostle (Rom. 8:35, 38, 39), that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

    There is an election-union in Christ from everlasting: God hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4).This is an act and instance of everlasting love, by which the persons chosen are considered in Christ, and one with him. Christ was chosen as an head, his people as members with him.

    Arminius and his followers, the Remonstrants, have frequently urged the text now mentioned in favor of election from faith foreseen, and their argument upon it is this: “None are chosen to salvation but in Christ; none are in Christ but believers, who are engrafted into Christ, and united to him by faith, therefore none are chosen to salvation, but those who are believers in sin Christ, are engrafted into him, and united with him.”

    For they had no other notion of being in Christ, but by faith. But then, they have been told by the Anti-Remonstrants, “That it is certain that we are chosen and regarded in Christ before we were believers; which is fully proved from several places of scripture, which plainly make it appear, that the elect have some existence in Christ, even before they believe; for unless there had been some kind of union between Christ and the members, Christ would not have been their head, nor could he have satisfied for them.”

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  459. There is clarity in the house- I think Mark has nailed the justification priority (forensic imputation) vrs union priority debate. It seems as though the scriptures do teach that the double imputation that God applies to the elect, as a result of Christ’s gaining the righteousness, does preceed regeneration and faith. Even Calvin got confused on this matter. I’m not sure Luther made the same error, but Mark thinks Luther was in error too. Although, I think Scott Clark was convinced that Luther understood imputation the same way Mark has, as he wrote about in a Lutheran theological journal( http://www.ctsfw.net/media/pdfs/clarkiustitiaimputatachristi.pdf) And he thinks Calvin taught the same thing that Luther did (which Mark clearly shows that Calvin taught something different). I wonder why this simple matter has become so complex and why God’s Word is not so clear on this, or, why we so easily get confused about it. It really is not that complex when explained clearly and the relevant scripture passages are put together in a coherent way. Although Jeff is still not convinced.

    Does this have implications for a confessional faith? The confessions do not really address the issue of whether imputation preceeds regeneration and faith. And I have been living under the delusion that Luther and Calvin had the same understanding in regards to justification by faith alone and how Christ’s work gets applied to the elect. Since I still struggle with sin in my life, and continually fall into it , I want someone to explain to me how they reconcile Romans chapter 7 with 1John chapter 3. Do I have to just believe in Christ’s work for me or do I have to put some synergistic work into my sanctification? How do I bare the fruit that justification should prompt me towards? I’m still down and out in Chicago and am sick and tired of my beat up life. I guess I have to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling and not really expect any easy answers to the dilemmas we all face.

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  460. What I am trying to say is that good works has not naturally flowed out of me (like rays from the sun is the way Luther and Melanchthon put it) and proven to others that I truly have Christ’s righteousness imputed to me by God Himself.

    Scott Clark never mentions whether Calvin agreed with Luther in regards to imputation preceeding regeneration and faith. Although he does mention that the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Book of Concord both confirm the idea that the imputation of grace (the double imputation) is the ground and legal basis for union with Christ that regeneration and faith establishes. Luther was clear, according to Clark, to make sure that faith had no intrinsic virtue but was merely an instrument. Clark also makes clear that Luther made some confusing statements about justification and all that entails in his early years and that his mature understanding of the doctrine of justification was not really established until around 1521. His most clear statements regarding justification were made in his lectures on Galations near 1536 and in the disputations he participated in in that same year with Melanchthon.

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  461. John Y:

    RSC writes (p.292): “This passage illustrates that, for Luther, faith brings the believer into union with Christ and through that union, Christ communicates not just the benefit of justification himself. Nevertheless, it is equally clear that Luther did not have the Christian justified on the basis of anything else but Christ’s imputed righteousness. He made a logical distinction between these aspects of union with Christ while not divorcing them.”

    and then (293): “Interpreting chapter 7 by an analogy with marriage, the intimate
    union between Christ and the believer was premised on a legal
    justification. Nowhere does one find evidence that Luther saw a theotic
    union in Romans. There is no reason to assume that the relational aspect of
    his doctrine of justification took logical precedence over the legal.”

    and then (294): “In the context of this discussion, the free exercise of the will is that intrinsic
    virtue, that he contrasted with the extrinsic righteousness of Christ
    imputed to the sinner and received through faith alone. One finds nothing
    in De servo regarding justification by theotic union.”

    “The law demands
    active righteousness or condign merit. It is this that Christ accomplished
    pro nobis. Passive righteousness comes to us, and that is gospel. It comes to
    us by imputation of Christ’s active, alien righteousness and is received
    through faith. The ground of justification is a not personal, spiritual union
    with Christ or Spirit-wrought sanctity with which we cooperate. The
    ground of justification is Christ’s active obedience credited to us.”

    and

    “Though he taught clearly that the righteousness by which we are
    justified coram Deo is extrinsic and reputed, his actual interest in this
    disputation was in the nature of the means by which it is comprehended.
    Our works (i.e., our cooperation with grace) are insufficient, “but faith,
    which is from our hearing Christ through the Holy Spirit, is infused by
    which Christ is comprehended.”l59 Ironically, having redefined faith away
    from the notion of an infused virtue, he was able to return to the metaphor
    of infusion to describe faith as an instrument. Faith has no virtue of itself
    (i.e., being formed by love), but its only power is that it lays hold of Christ.” (300)

    This is quite different from Mark, it seems, who would have faith being received by imputation, if I’m understanding him.

    For Luther, imputation is received by faith.

    —

    Clark’s article (rightly) opposes the notion that “theotic union” a la Osiander is the ground for our justification. No-one in the current debates is arguing for that position.

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  462. John Y:

    And I have been living under the delusion that Luther and Calvin had the same understanding in regards to justification by faith alone and how Christ’s work gets applied to the elect.

    I believe they did, and that they held that justification was through faith as the alone instrument.

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  463. Jeff,

    I’m not clear that Mark is saying what you say he is saying. I hear Mark saying that God imputes Christ’s righteousness to the elect after the elects sin is imputed to Christ. This is God’s forensic declaration or reckoning of the elect to Christ. This then is the legal grounds for the Holy Spirit to grant us the gift of regeneration which then enables us to repent and believe. We then believe in Gods double imputation by faith which causes our justification. This all happens at the same time or simultaneously. But there is a proper logical and temporal priority even though they seem to happen simultaneously. We have no inherent righteousness in ourselves that causes God to justify us. It is all extra nos or by means of the imputation of Christs work to the elect. This is the grace alone that Luther struggled with and found something else prevalent in medieval ideas of his time (which including ideas found in Augustine, Aquinas Ockam et al), ie., that grace was incrementally infused into our ontological beings that slowly sanctified us until a time when we could be called truly justified before God because of our inherent righteousness that God poured into us as we met the conditions of cooperating with this infused grace.

    Mark says that Calvin taught that regeneration and faith preceeded the imputation logically and temporally and this is where Mark disagrees. Mark also has relayed to me that he thinks Lutherans are in error in regards to giving faith virtue instead of only instrumental value but I think Clark refutes that clearly in his paper that I linked.

    Now I hear you saying that Scott Clark was really saying that Luther and Calvin both agreed that repentance and faith preceeded the double imputation by God to the elect both logically and temporally.

    I guess it is now time for Mark to respond. Maybe I still am not hearing or seeing something clearly.

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  464. Mark also believes that Lutherans are in error in regards to their belief in the universality of the Atonement and Lutherans have no concept of the elect that the Calvinists developed.

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  465. What I definitely still get confused about and lack clarity in is that Luther believed that we still are inherently sinful after our justification but God overlooks this still inherent sin because of our belief in the double imputation of Christ’s work for us. Luther stated things like we still sin daily but also states that we need to display our belief in Christs work for us by manifesting fruit or good works in our lives. I especially have not found clarity in how to reconcile Romans chapter 7 with 1John chapter 3. If we still sin daily how can we be disciplined for this still inherent sin? That is hugely problematic to me and an issue I have had to deal with in our family business. It is a family issue that has caused deep problems in our family which none of us siblings have been able to reconcile with each other. Anyways, I am sure many of us struggle with these same issues.

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  466. Jeff and John, I don’t have much time right now, but to briefly respond.

    1. Jeff is right that Luther and Calvin agree on faith being before justification.

    2. But despite this temporal priority, both of them want to give logical priority to the forensic, to the priority of Christ’s righteousness.

    3. So John, the only reason God would not count my sins against me is NOT because of my faith but because of Christ’s righteousness (His death which satisfied the law for the elect). To give the forensic the priority is to give first place (logically) to what Christ did outside us.

    4. I think both Calvin and Luther want to do that. Neither wants to locate the righteousness in what Christ by His Holy Spirit is doing in us. And yet Luther points to faith as Christ’s presence already in us, and puts this faith before justification, and that tends to put our minds on the faith and not on the object of faith (as if we could have Christ first without the benefits of His work)

    Since Luther has an universal atonement, he inherently cannot think that the atonement is decisive, and by default thus makes faith to be the deciding factor. But my point (which was the point of Bruce McCormack and Mike Horton) is that, by agreeing to the temporal priority of faith, Calvin at least seems inconsistent in making the righteousness of Christ the only basis of justification.

    5. At the end of the day, the logical priority of Christ’s atonement as the reason a person is justified is most important. We can disagree with the Finnish view about the early Luther giving first place to Christ within. We can point to Calvin’s refutation of Osiander to make distinctions between various confusing definitions of “union”. While all Lutherans put faith before justification, most of them still put “union” after justification (contrary to the Finnish view)

    So I can disagree with Gaffin (and Jeff) about the temporal order and also about the definition of “union”, but that does not mean that Gaffin wants to deny imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the basis of justification. But to the extent that Gaffin puts imputation in second place, and makes the Spirit giving faith to be the bond of union, he tends to put the accent on “sanctification” as one of the “benefits of union”.

    6. And this leads me to two practical concerns. One is what John talking about: woe is me, because I do not feel the grateful “sanctification” flowing out of me. As Ellul said in another context, after all has been said, nothing has been done. Those who put the accent on the “necessary works which result from union” may reassure the Romanists and the moralists that the gospel is not antinomian, but are their theories any more productive of grateful Christian obedience than those of us who are more concerned about “dead works”?

    It seems that neither party in the debate has much to be confident about in terms of the way we perform. What shall we say to these things? Thank God that I am more “gospel awake” than you are?

    Our performance (I mean yours also) should drive back to the gospel of a synthetic righteousness, a righteousness which is not in us but which God imputes to us, a righteousness which Christ earned outside of us, and only earned for the elect. But I would say that….

    7. I suppose that one of my motives for thinking about the definition and timing of “union” is to keep the focus on the good news that Christ died only for the elect, and that it’s this death which saves all for whom Christ died. Contrary to Letham, the Holy Spirit does not “select the team”. I think there is a tendency in those who prioritize “union” to collapse the atonement (and even election) into justification. Because nobody is justified until imputation, many supposedly “Reformed” sermons would give you the impression that Christ hasn’t already died for the elect before the “union”. They may give lip-service to union by election, or to the idea of the sins of the elect imputed to Christ at the cross, but when they say “union” they tend to mean faith, and the impression is given that atonement happens only at justification.

    Note I say tendency, because Jeff has already distanced himself from any such trend. Jeff has clearly said that atonement and justification are distinct, and that of course the atonement is before faith. If anything, Jeff’s concern would be that people on my side of the discussion collapse justification and atonement the other way back. I mean if imputation of the righteousness is before faith, why not say that the imputation of the righteousness was at the same time as the atonement?

    I would agree that John Gill, Kuyper and others have done this very thing. They have made a distinction between two justifications, one objective at the cross, and the other merely subjective to our conscience. But I reject this notion, and affirm that there is no justification without faith. “Imputation before faith” is not to be equated with “justification before faith”. We have to keep our eyes on what is being imputed. Imputation is not being imputed. Faith is not being imputed. Christ’s righteousness is imputed, and the result of that is justification.

    Another way that has been said is to say that “imputation” is both the “legal transfer” and the “declaration that the person is now justified.” Both are included, and this justification doesn’t happen without faith in the gospel happening at the same time. Romans 8:10–“the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

    Thus ends my “brief”…

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  467. Mark, I think you’ve articulated the differences pretty well. Are you comfortable enough with my understanding of your position so that we can move to arguments for/against?

    Mark: Contrary to Letham, the Holy Spirit does not “select the team”

    Does he really say that? I thought it was a Reformed commonplace that the Father elects…

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  468. What we think is “commonplace” is no longer so common.

    Letham, Union with Christ, Presbyterian and Reformed, 2011, p53: “Not only is Christ our substitute and representative, acting in our place and on our behalf, but we are one with him. The work is ours because we are on the same team. If the goaltender makes a blunder, the whole team loses the game…In a similar way, Christ has made atonement and won the victory for his team, while in turn the Holy Spirit selects us for his team.” (p53)

    Did Christ die for a team with a specific number of people, with the persons to be named later?

    Don’t you know that the most commonplace thing to say to the Machens of the world is that we need to get away from “individualism”? The church is the “universal” (the one) which is always more important than the many. To concern yourself with atonement for elect individuals is anabaptism, nominalism, pietism, separatism….

    It’s fine to say “covenantal”. But don’t think that this means a legal solidarity in which the guilt of Adam is distributed to individuals or the righteousness of Christ is transferred to elect individuals.
    Or that the sins of individuals have already been died for by Christ (or not).

    Thus ends the sarcasm. If we are on the same team, it’s because the work of Christ was for us. Order is important because teleology is important. Christ died on purpose for the elect. Galatians 2:21–If justification were even a little bit by our law-keeping, then Christ died for NO purpose.

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  469. Interesting. I think he’s probably being sloppy. It is legitimate to say that “the Spirit calls us to the team, according to the elections of the Father.” As far as I know, Letham does not deny limited atonement (that would be big news in the Reformed world).

    The real story here is that sports metaphors and theology don’t mix well. 🙂

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  470. I have reread these threads again and am seeing where the disagreements lie more clearly. I think part of the confusion lies in the terms the scriptures use and the role of each member of the Trinity in applying the work of Christ to the individual which causes the believer to be justified. Why the scriptures make this so confusing is a mystery to me but confusing it definitely is. A sorting out and unraveling of the relevant scripture passages is certainly something that needs to be done. I am still not sure if Mark is right in his unraveling of the doctrine but he certainly is the one who seems to have taken the most time in trying to understand it all. And he seems to be in disagreement with both Luther, Calvin and the main Lutheran and Calvinists confessions of faith. According to Jeff, none of the confessions, or Luther and Calvin, have believed that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer have come before faith. Mark says that faith is the result of the imputation and Jeff says that faith results in the legal imputation. Jeff believes that both Luther and Calvin, and the Calvinist confessions of faith are in agreement with him. Let the scriptural arguments from both sides begin. The following is my little bit to try to bring more clarity to the arguments:

    Part of the confusion for me has been to unravel the roles of each member of the Trinity in justifying the believer:

    God the Father: The legal judge who resides over the whole process; the One who does the imputing in eternity and in time (effectual calling) for the elect, God the Father actually imputes our sin to Christ and Christ righteousness to the us (the elect)

    God the Son: Obtains the righteousness for the elect so the elect can die to the sin we are born with. Other terms which scripture uses which are synonymous with “died to sin”- “baptized into Christ” or the legal application of the atonement “union with Christ.” All three of these terms have the same meaning as what takes place during the imputation. So, after the imputation we are “dead to sin”, “baptized into Christ” and are in “union with Christ” in a legal and forensic way.

    God the Holy Spirit: regenerates the elect which monergistically creates repentance and faith when the elect “hears” the Gospel in a salvific way. The question of disagreement lies in when this actually occurs logically and temporally- before or after God’s imputation to the elect. It seems to me, this all could happen simultaneously too. An important point Mark made is that this gift of faith is not to be confused with the imputation of Christ righteousness to the elect. Faith is not imputed but Mark believes that this faith is the result of the imputation. Jeff believes that the imputation results from the faith. Good luck you guys in trying to bring biblical support to your positions.

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  473. So, here is the order according to Mark:
    1) The Gospel is proclaimed to a particular elect person or persons
    2) God the Father imputes our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us, we are declared justified by God, dead to sin, baptized into Christ and in legal union with Christ (He already did this in eternity but at a certain time in human history to the elect when the Gospel is prolaimed to them; before this time the elect were still under the curse of sin
    3) At the same instant or a tick later, the Holy Spirit regenerates the person which produces the gifts of repentance and faith in what Christ did for us; faith is not the result of the regeneration but the result of the imputation according to Mark. This does seem kind of out of kilter and skewed a bit if I am representing Mark’s view properly. The hangup for me would be what’s the purpose of regeneration?

    Here is what I hear Jeff saying:
    1) The Gospel is proclaimed to a particular elect person or persons
    2) The Holy Spirit regenerates the person which produces repentance and faith in what Christ did for them
    3) A tick later God imputes the elects sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to the elect believer or believers which causes the elect to be dead to sin, baptized into Christ and in union with Christ in a legal and forensic way. The only rub with this position seems to be that the legal and forensic comes after faith. I can see why that would be problematic too.

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  474. Another problem, if we are dead to sin why does sin still live within us? It does seem like we can progressively overcome our still inherent sin but how do we do this consistently? What is the purpose of Church and the Sacraments in all this too. Mark has a low view of the Church and Sacraments and this causes me problems. The Church Fathers and the Church in the Middle Ages all has high views of the Church and the Sacraments. So did the Reformers, It was the Anabaptists who were the passers on of a low view of the Church and Sacraments.

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  475. mark responding to John : We can’t begin talking about Scriptures. I have been talking about Bible texts all through this thread, so I am not encouraged to do that all over again. If you want to do a service, you can read the entire thread and pull out the verses cited by different folks.

    John Y wrote: God the Father: The legal judge who resides over the whole process; the One who does the imputing in eternity and in time (effectual calling) for the elect, God the Father actually imputes our sin to Christ and Christ righteousness to the us (the elect) God the Son: Obtains the righteousness for the elect so the elect can die to the sin we are born with.

    mark: The “die to sin” category is from Romans 6. Jesus Christ died to sin. Jesus Christ was not born again. The “die to sin” is a legal category. The sin the elect are born with is first of all guilt, and corruption is a result of that. The solution for guilt is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and that in turn creates the hearing of the gospel.

    Effectual calling is NOT the imputing that but a result of the imputing. There is no “can die”. Christ never died for the non-elect. They cannot die to sin. They will not die to sin. And even though God has already imputed the sins of the elect to Christ, the elect are not born dead to sin but will become dead to sin when they are justified.

    john y:So, after the imputation we are “dead to sin”, “baptized into Christ” and are in “union with Christ” in a legal and forensic way.

    mark: My concern (and I think Jeff’s) is not temporal order but logical priority. So I don’t think either one of us wants to say “a tick behind”. Even if it turned out that I was wrong, and that faith in the gospel was logically before God’s imputation, I would want to say that the righteousness imputed still has priority. And I don’t know that Jeff would disagree that. Certainly the atonement has the priority. Christ either already died for a sinner or not.

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  476. I Cor 12:13 –”in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”
    Christ is the one who baptizes into the Spirit. The elect are not baptized by the Spirit into Christ.

    With all the words I have written on this thread, I am surprised that anybody thinks they need to put some in my mouth. But let me quibble some with John’s attempt:

    john: 1) The Gospel is proclaimed to a particular elect person or persons

    Mark: The gospel is NOT “Christ died for you and your children and all who take the sacrament”. The gospel is to be proclaimed to everybody and the promise of the gospel is for “as many as whom the Lord our God calls to Himself”. (Acts 2:39). So I tell the gospel to you, because you might be one for whom Christ died and whom the Lord will call. I tell the gospel to your children, because some or all of them might be among those the Lord will call. I tell the gospel to “all who are far off”, because some of them are among those for whom Christ has obtained a righteousness. This gospel includes the truth of election and atonement. I am not worried that God has revealed too much, so that I need to hold some of it back for fear that the elect will not believe it.

    john y: 2) God the Father imputes our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us, we are declared justified by God, dead to sin, baptized into Christ and in legal union with Christ (He already did this in eternity but at a certain time in human history to the elect when the Gospel is proclaimed to them; before this time the elect were still under the curse of sin

    mark: I have never said anything about any imputing in eternity. Before the ages, God had a decree to impute. But the imputation of the sins of the elect to Christ and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the elect are two different legal moments. For example, Abraham was justified before the atonement, but the NT elect are justified after the atonement.

    One other clarification. I do not want to reduce “union” to the legal. We all agree that union has a legal aspect, but some of us tend to forget that later when we put “union” before justification.

    And of course, Calvinists agree that there is an aspect of “union” before the atonement. There is “union by election”, so that Christ the surety died only for those elect in Him. Only the sins of the elect were counted toward Christ.

    John: 3) At the same instant or a tick later, the Holy Spirit regenerates the person which produces the gifts of repentance and faith in what Christ did for us; faith is not the result of the regeneration but the result of the imputation according to Mark.

    mark: no no no. Faith in the true gospel IS most certainly a result of the regeneration. There is nowhere in this thread or anywhere that I deny that. Indeed, I affirm it. I think you have a false either or, as if to say: if faith is after imputation, then faith is not after regeneration. But both regeneration and faith come after the imputation.

    Indeed, I agree with McCormack (and not only Horton but also Gaffin) that we need to think more carefully about splitting “regeneration” off from effectual calling, hearing and faith. There is no such thing as a “regeneration” apart from the gospel. But that discussion is for another day, another thread perhaps. But make no mistake: faith is not before regeneration. If so, there would be no need for regeneration. Look at how badly Lewis Sperry Chafer and Dallas Seminary do in talking about what “regeneration” is.

    (For the McCormack, you are going to have to buy the IVP book. It’s well worth it, not only for his essay but for several others.)

    john y: The hangup for me would be what’s the purpose of regeneration?

    mark: Without the new birth (regeneration), nobody would believe the gospel. Again, I warn you, don’t be reductionistic. Even though imputation is in order to faith, there is no justification apart from faith. And there is no faith apart from regeneration. The life to hear and obey the gospel comes as a result of the “legal life” (dead to sin) granted in imputation.

    As corruption resulted from condemnation (guilt), even so regeneration results from righteousness.
    Your question would be like asking: if we are justified, why do we then need bodily resurrection. We need both. Without the one, we won’t have the other.

    Romans 8:10-11–although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

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  477. Christ is in the elect, but not until after the elect are in Christ. The elect are always loved in Christ, but they do not have life or Christ or justification until they are constituted righteous on the basis not of faith or the new birth but only because of Christ’s death and resurrection for the elect alone. This explains why Paul can write about Andronicus and Junia being “in Christ before me” in Romans 16:7. All three of them were elect before the foundation of the world. By His Spirit now indwelling them, Christ is in all three of them . But being “in Christ” is about when God justified them.

    God justified Christ when God raised Christ from the dead, but the many (the elect in Christ) will be justified at various times, so that some are in Christ before Paul was and some are in Christ after Paul was in Christ. But this being in Christ is caused by God putting them legally in Christ and in His finished cross-work which satisfied God’s justice.

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  478. Duke game is coming on, so I have to get off here. I’ve got my priorities!

    Part of what needs to be thought about is what we mean about regeneration (and corruption). We need to think about the image of God and about the continuity of a person before and after regeneration (or corruption). I am suspicious of any gospel which makes its “more basic reality” to be ultimately about what God does in us, metaphysically or dispositionally or habitually.

    I am aware of a long philosophical history of talking about infusion. While I don’t want to say that regeneration is an infusion or even an impartation of righteousness, and I certainly don’t think that regeneration comes by means of sacraments, 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 immorality, 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.”

    I John 3:9 is not only saying that the justified elect cannot be charged with the sin of not believing the gospel. Of course it is true that Christ died as a result of being imputed with the elect’s sins in not believing. But Christ also died in order to give the Holy Spirit to the elect so that the elect would abide in the gospel, and the gospel would abide in the elect. When I deny that the Holy Spirit gives Christ or that the Spirit unites the elect to Christ, I am not denying that Christ gives the Holy Spirit or that the Holy Spirit gives the elect person a new heart. I affirm that good news.

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  479. Mark; I want to watch the Duke game too. I will respond when I can. I think you are making assumptions about what I said from thinking I am thinking like a Lutheran. I tried to get out from thinking like a Lutheran and be faithful to what both you and Jeff were saying. I wrote it kind of fast and I know there are problems in some of the things I said. I was making assumptions about some things both you and Jeff stated too which I still do not have clarity about. I was just making statements that both of you might build on and make more clear.

    I appreciate Mark that you are always trying to make the good news of the Gospel more clear and much better news than a lot of theologians make it. I want to know what the scriptures actually teach on this doctrine of justification and realize many interpret the relevant scripture passages differently. BTW, I really like your interpretation of the few verses in 1John chapter 3 that you wrote about. I will try to think more deeply about your response later. I will try to go back to the threads already written and post all the relevant scripture passages that have been mentioned already. I have this week off for the holidays so I have lots of time tonight (after the game) and tomorrow. I am going to my oldest daughters on Thanksgiving day near Ann Arbor.

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  480. I for one will be ignoring the Duke game. 🙂

    Mark, it may take a bit of time for me to marshal the Scriptures I’ve been dwelling on. But I would like to start there, and then move to theologizing. I will get there.

    Jeff

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  481. mark responding to John : We can’t begin talking about Scriptures. I have been talking about Bible texts all through this thread, so I am not encouraged to do that all over again. If you want to do a service, you can read the entire thread and pull out the verses cited by different folks.

    John Y responding to Mark: I realize you have been doing that Mark but I really did not want to go all the back through the threads and do that either. It is helpful to summarize on occasion to keep the arguments fresh in our minds and be reminded of the progress that has been made towards more clarity about the doctrine. As I said, I will try to organize the relevant scripture passages in a way that makes the various elements in the doctrine more clear- we all should be doing that.

    John Y wrote: God the Father: The legal judge who resides over the whole process; the One who does the imputing in eternity and in time (effectual calling) for the elect, God the Father actually imputes our sin to Christ and Christ righteousness to the us (the elect) God the Son: Obtains the righteousness for the elect so the elect can die to the sin we are born with.

    mark: The “die to sin” category is from Romans 6. Jesus Christ died to sin. Jesus Christ was not born again. The “die to sin” is a legal category. The sin the elect are born with is first of all guilt, and corruption is a result of that. The solution for guilt is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and that in turn creates the hearing of the gospel.

    My response to this: I knew when I wrote that God the Son obtains the righteousness so the elect can die to the sin they were born with, that I was not being clear and I was not careful in what I was saying. I should not have said it that way. I understand what you are saying here and the way you said it is much more clear than what I said. Although I have never heard the way you put it: “The solution for guilt is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and that in turn creates the hearing of the Gospel. That does seem to make logical sense but can that sentence be proven from scripture? It seems to me that that would be integral in proving your case that imputation comes before faith and repentance.

    I also never stated that Jesus had to be born again nor have I ever thought that. I am not sure how you came to that conclusion that I somehow believed that. That one miffed me.

    Another realization: What I said about effectual calling was not clear either. I realize that effectual callin is the result of the imputation but you and Jeff may have a disagreement on when (temporally) effectual calling takes place. You say after the imputation but Jeff may say after regeneration, repentance and faith. I’m not sure if there is much significance in that difference though. I do agree that the logical priority is more important then the temporal, hence the tick is not really helpful.

    john: 1) The Gospel is proclaimed to a particular elect person or persons

    Mark: The gospel is NOT “Christ died for you and your children and all who take the sacrament”. The gospel is to be proclaimed to everybody and the promise of the gospel is for “as many as whom the Lord our God calls to Himself”. (Acts 2:39). So I tell the gospel to you, because you might be one for whom Christ died and whom the Lord will call. I tell the gospel to your children, because some or all of them might be among those the Lord will call. I tell the gospel to “all who are far off”, because some of them are among those for whom Christ has obtained a righteousness. This gospel includes the truth of election and atonement. I am not worried that God has revealed too much, so that I need to hold some of it back for fear that the elect will not believe it.

    John Y’s reponse to this: Here is where you are assuming I am thinking like a Lutheran and you are putting words in my mouth Mark. You totally misinterpreted what I was trying to say here. I was just trying to make it clear that the Gospel was being proclaimed like the sower was sowing the seed in the parable of the sower and what happens when the elect hears it (and how the non-elect obviously do not hear it). That is all I was trying to get across but I did not word that very clearly either. If you want to go sacramental, and what I believe about the sacraments (the Lord’s Supper), you might want to read Martin Chemnitz’s THE TWO NATURES IN CHRIST. He uses about 1200 citations from the Patristic fathers, particularly Cyril of Alexandria (the nemesis of the Nestorians) and John of Damascus, to try to prove that the Lutheran understanding of the two natures of Christ was not a novelty during the reformation but in complete agreement with the ancient church and the church of the 4 ecumenical councils. However, I digress. I’m smiling while I am digressing. Another worthwhile read is Chemnitz’s 4 volume EXAMINATION OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.

    Enough for now, I have to do a few things but am planning on continuing this dialog. I think we are discussing very important things and I want to be at my best when responding.

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  482. What I think has been most perplexing to me in this discussion is the answer that the union-emphasis folks give to the question of the forensic basis of union and the ordo salutis. I’m not sure they’re wrong, but I’m still trying to make sense of it.

    As I understand it, what’s basic to our Reformed covenant theology is that Christ, as the second Adam, that is, as federal representative, does what Adam failed to do, namely, merit the eternal inheritance on behalf of those whom He represents. If this is true, then it would seem (at least to me) that the heart of the gospel is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, or justification. This is what I’ve understood Reformed theology to teach. So that, even though sanctification is crucial, even though it’s non-negotiable, even though no one is justified who is not also being sanctified and vice versa, yet justification is still more foundational. And I would think that this is why Horton and Fesko, etc. argue that justification is the forensic basis of union, sanctification, regeneration, etc.

    The union folks however, though I think they would agree with most of the above paragraph, argue instead that neither justification or sanctification is more basic or foundational than the other, since both are received in union with Christ, both are benefits of Christ, and to claim that one is more basic or foundational is to pit one aspect of Christ’s work against another aspect of Christ’s work, to “rend Him asunder.” So with regards to the question of the forensic basis for union, they say it’s the merit of Christ, but that it’s not the imputed merit of Christ. Are they right about this? Maybe, but I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the distinction….

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  483. David,

    I would say two things in response to that:

    (1) Imputation *is indeed* the heart of the gospel and the forensic component of (not ‘basis for’ … reserving that term for the atonement) our union with Christ.

    (2) And why union matters here is that in order for imputation to make sense, it must be the case that we are identified with Christ as our head. Forensically speaking, it is a “unity of belonging to”, I am viewed by the Father through Christ and not on my own merit, that makes sense out of imputation.

    What I’ve been trying to get at is that *forensic* union language and imputation language are not at odds, but are rather synonymous.

    Having Jesus’ righteousness ‘imputed to me’ means that his righteousness is forensically accounted to me.

    Being united forensically to Christ means that his righteousness is forensically credited to me.

    Exact same meaning.

    The distinction comes when we begin to speak of ordo matters: is justification logically prior to the whole class of transformative actions of God (regeneration, sanctification)?

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  484. Jeff, right, but if it’s true that Christ as the second Adam merited the eternal inheritance on behalf of those whom He represents, then why is it not also true that Christ’s righteousness imputed to us is the forensic basis for our receiving of all the benefits of salvation? In the past I’d thought that these are just two ways of saying the exact same thing.

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  485. But Jeff, forensic union language is hardly what the unionists are arguing for. They want the legal AND the transformative, so that (as Nick Batzig argued) a believer can say immediately after sin — “but I am dead to sin.” How that “makes sense” I’m still trying to make sense. But I don’t like your suggestion that imputation didn’t make sense until union came along. Trent thought imputation was awfully clear and no one was talking about union in the sixteenth century.

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  486. David: but if it’s true that Christ as the second Adam merited the eternal inheritance on behalf of those whom He represents, then why is it not also true that Christ’s righteousness imputed to us is the forensic basis for our receiving of all the benefits of salvation? In the past I’d thought that these are just two ways of saying the exact same thing.

    Because the atonement is not the same thing as justification.

    Christ’s meriting the inheritance on behalf of those whom He represents is precisely the limited atonement.

    The imputing of that merit is their justification.

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  487. DGH: But Jeff, forensic union language is hardly what the unionists are arguing for.

    OK, maybe they should be. The point is not that all those who claim the “unionist” label are beyond error. The point is that union language when properly used is compatible with imputation language. And historically, it *has been* properly used — by Calvin, Fisher, etc.

    DGH: They want the legal AND the transformative, so that (as Nick Batzig argued) a believer can say immediately after sin — “but I am dead to sin.” How that “makes sense” I’m still trying to make sense.

    Right. You’re objecting to the duplex gratia. But in that case, you would have to object to Dort also, since they also posit legal and transformative right there in together.

    DGH: But I don’t like your suggestion that imputation didn’t make sense until union came along.

    Not suggesting that at all. I’m suggesting that imputation and union were cheerfully coexisting from the beginning. It is the apparent “conflict” between them that is new. Not saying that this is the fault of JPers OR of unionists; but it is certainly new.

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  488. mark:“The solution for guilt is the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and that in turn creates the hearing of the Gospel.”

    john y: That does seem to make logical sense but can that sentence be proven from scripture? It seems to me that that would be integral in proving your case that imputation comes before faith and repentance.

    Mark: II Peter 1:1 –to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

    There you have the righteousness of Christ, not only the righteousness of God. This of course the only place in Scripture that says it exactly that way. But I do not assume with Gundry and NT Wright that God’s righteousness is not Christ’s righteousness. But to John’s question, the faith which is given is given by the righteousness. Faith is a gift from God, but not apart from Christ’s righteousness.

    Galatians 3:13-14–Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law…so that IN CHRIST the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promised Spirit through faith.

    Galatians 4:6–Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts

    We would agree that Christ’s gift of the Spirit (Christ baptizes with the Spirit) is a result of Christ having been made a curse. The question is if the imputation of that death (the righteousness) is before or after the gift of faith.

    John Y: I also never stated that Jesus had to be born again nor have I ever thought that. I am not sure how you came to that conclusion that I somehow believed that. That one miffed me

    mark: My clarifications were not based on conjectures about what you would say. They were clarifications (or meant to be!). A lot of folks see the word “baptism” in Romans 6 and think water. Many of them are not Lutherans. And even more folks see the word “baptism” in Romans 6 and think “this means that the Holy Spirit puts us into Christ.”. But it does not, The Holy Spirit is not the agent there at all. It’s a legal placing not into the Spirit, but into Christ’s death.

    Mark: The gospel is NOT “Christ died for you and your children and all who take the sacrament”. The gospel is to be proclaimed to everybody and the promise of the gospel is for “as many as whom the Lord our God calls to Himself”. (Acts 2:39). So I tell the gospel to you, because you might be one for whom Christ died and whom the Lord will call. I tell the gospel to your children, because some or all of them might be among those the Lord will call. I tell the gospel to “all who are far off”, because some of them are among those for whom Christ has obtained a righteousness. This gospel includes the truth of election and atonement. I am not worried that God has revealed too much, so that I need to hold some of it back for fear that the elect will not believe it.

    John Y’s reponse to this: Here is where you are assuming I am thinking like a Lutheran and you are putting words in my mouth Mark. You totally misinterpreted what I was trying to say here.

    mark: First, I apologize since obviously you thought I was trying to interpret you. Second, I wasn’t though. It was a clarification. It’s a clarification I make continually, no less to Calvinists who have subscribed to definite atonement in their confessions.

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  489. David: but if it’s true that Christ as the second Adam merited the eternal inheritance on behalf of those whom He represents, then why is it not also true that Christ’s righteousness imputed to us is the forensic basis for our receiving of all the benefits of salvation? In the past I’d thought that these are just two ways of saying the exact same thing.

    Jeff: Because the atonement is not the same thing as justification.

    mark: I agree with Jeff that the atonement is not the same thing as justification. To use the Bible words, let’s think “reconciliation”. The reconciliation is not the same as the receiving of the reconciliation.

    Romans 5:11 –we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

    One, this receiving is by imputation. I have discussed the commentaries in previous post (I took sides with John Murray vs Moo). The parallel is Romans 5:17–death reigned through the one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

    Again, receive the free gift of righteousness does not in context mean “receive by faith”, since we did not receive by a human act the guilt of Adam. We receive that guilt by imputation; we receive righteousness by imputation.

    Two, So I agree with Jeff that Christ made the reconciliation (Christ obtained it) and that this is not to be confused with the receiving of it.

    Three, but of course if there were no reconciliation made, no righteousness earned, then there could be no reconiliation to be received, no righteousness to be imputed. Gaffin rightly criticizes NT Wright (and the federal visionists) for eliminating the righteousness and reducing justification to simply sharing Christ’s resurrected status.

    Four, so to respond to David, we can’t say that Christ earning the righteousness (the merits) is the same thing as God imputing the righteousness (the merits). They are two different legal moments. Abraham was justified before the atonement, and the NT elect are justified after the atonement.

    Fifth, I don’t want to put words in Jeff’s mouth (he can speak!) and he has not commented directly on the exegesis of “receive the reconciliation”, but at least in his order (to be found in Calvin book 3), he seems to think that Christ the person has to be received by faith before God can or will impute the merits and benefits (the righteousness and the blessings of justification and adoption).

    Sixth, those who hate the doctrine of definite atonement want to collapse atonement and justification, so that the only effectual atonement is conditioned on faith. But this is not true of Jeff, and not true of all “unionists’. But many of them are becoming less forthright about the intent and extent of the atonement (see Letham, and on the baptist side, Andrew Fuller).

    Seven, can we all at least agree with David R. that Christ being imputed with the sins of the elect is the forensic basis for the elect’s receiving all the benefits of salvation?

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  490. David R: The union folks …argue instead that neither justification or sanctification is more basic than the other, since both are received in union with Christ, both are benefits of Christ, and to claim that one is more basic or foundational is to pit one aspect of Christ’s work against another aspect of Christ’s work, to “rend Him asunder.” So with regards to the question of the forensic basis for union, they say it’s the merit of Christ, but that it’s not the imputed merit of Christ.

    mark: There are so many different kinds of “unionist” folks that lumping them together is always going to be unfair. Not even all the “federal vision” folks dispute the idea of Christ’s “merits”, though most of them do. But Gaffin is not denying imputation. He’s supplementing it with the idea that the Holy Spirit binds us to Christ personally so that Christ is “in us” before we are “in Christ”. And then Tipton accuses any who disagree with that (Horton) of being semi-Pelagian. As if to say, if you put imputation before regeneration, then you must faith before regeneration.

    But some of us give logical priority to the “in Christ” (by imputation) and say that the gift of the Spirit indwelling is a result of that. That does not mean that we deny the need for regeneration before faith. We simply think that regeneration (effectual calling, hearing with faith) is the result of Christ’s work. We do not have Christ for Himself without also having the legal benefit of Christ’s work.

    Romans 8;32–how will he not also WITH HIM graciously give us all things?

    Psalm 68:8 (Ephesians 4:8)–When he ascended on high he led host of captives, and he gave us gifts ….

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  491. Hi John Y.,

    The best thing I’ve found on sanctification is Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller’s article here: http://www.hope-aurora.org/docs/Sanctification.pdf

    He does a great job with the foundation of Baptism, contrition and faith (repentance), simul iustus et peccator, etc.

    Also, he gets into it on his funny little radio show, if you can stand to listen. 😉

    Jordan Cooper had a good post about 1 John here:

    http://justandsinner.blogspot.com/2011/10/1-john-and-assurance-of-faith.html

    Anyway, sorry for butting in.

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  492. Jeff, I’m not objecting to the duplex. I’m objecting to the priority of union. It still seems to me that union priority has yet to receive confessional status (and yes I am aware of Westminster Standards). That is why Dort is interesting. No mention of union. Calvin is not a confession.

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  493. Nate,

    Thanks for those links. I have some similar interests as James Jordon does and plan to stay in contact with him. Where did you find out about his site? How long have you been going to a Lutheran Church and where do you go?

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  494. DG Hart—“The justified sinner hasn’t forgotten union with Christ’s resurrection but is nevertheless struggling with belonging to Christ AND doing something that looks like he belongs to the devil. Remembering union with Christ’s resurrection won’t solve the problem of having just sinned and trying to account for sin’s presence in the believer’s life. ”

    Those who teach only the indicative are sinners.

    Those who teach only the imperatives are not yet Christians.

    Those who collapse the imperatives into the indicative are not yet Christians.

    Romans 6:20–When you were the slaves of sin, you were FREE IN REGARD TO RIGHTEOUSNESS. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.

    Romans 7:4–You also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you will belong to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order to bear fruit for God.

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  497. I have been reflecting on the previous comments on this thread post for the past two days while taking copious amounts of notes to try to sort this all out. There are scripture passages which seem to support Jeff’s position (faith preceeds imputation), ie. Romans 4:1-8: “What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” However, this does not necessarily mean that the imputation cannot preceed faith. This implication of the psalm reference of David is that the imputation preceeded the faith.

    Jeff also refers to Acts 15 and I will start with verse 5 and go through verse 12: “But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the Law of Moses.’ The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, ‘Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.” There is a lot going on in this passage of scripture. First of all, it is remarkable that there were believers among the “party of the Pharisees.” Unfortunately, they wanted to put the yoke of the Law of Moses on the other believers who were not of the party of the Pharisees, and circumcise them. Secondly, the Gentiles were effectually called by hearing and believing the gospel. Thirdly, God the Father who is claimed to know the heart, bore witness to them (the Gentiles whom the Pharisees could and would not tolerate) by giving them the Holy Spirit. Fourthly, the Holy Spirt was able to cleanse their hearts by their gift of faith. Fifthly, neither the Jews nor the Gentiles could not bear the burden of the Law- this conclusion was reached “after much debate.” Sixthly, the final concensus was that all will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus. What is this grace of the Lord Jesus that saves us but the imputation of our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us. This is that which David speaks of in the psalm quoted in Romans chapter 4- “blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” So, faith is what the Holy Spirit does to us to cleanse our hearts, but it seems possible that the imputation occured before our faith cleansed our hearts. Whether this cleansing of the heart is an actual transformation of our ontological being is still unclear to me. What does cleansing our hearts mean? Is this the same as the new creation that Paul talks about in first Corinthians?

    Mark, on the other hand, wants to make clear what receiving the reconciliation actually means. He refers to Romans chapters 5 and 6 quite frequently. I will take that up at another time because there are again versus that seem to support both Jeff and Mark and it is time for me to go to bed. Romans 5,6, and 7 just seem to confuse the issue more. But, I am holding out hope that we may one day come to more clarity.

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  498. Salvation by works is the problem.

    The unionists (Gaffin) say
    1.”definitive sanctification” and “progressive sanctification” are also by grace, not by works.
    2. But then they also say that the “grace-works” antithesis is removed once you are “united” and justified.
    3. And then finally they say that justification is not by synergy, but that sanctification is by synergy.

    p73, Gaffin, By Faith not by Sight”—Here is what may be fairly called a synergy but it is not a 50/50 undertaking (not even 99.9% God and 0.1% ourselves). Involved here is the ‘mysterious math’ of the creator and his image-bearing creature, whereby 100% plus 100% =100%. Sanctification is 100% the work of God, and for that reason, is to engage the full 100% activity of the believer.”

    My conclusion is not about motives about the results of this kind of “unionism”.
    1. Justification is not seen as part of the “union”.
    2. “Union” is defined by antithesis so that “union” is not justification, not sanctification, not any of the benefits, but rather the presence of the person of Christ (naked, alone, without His benefits).
    3. “Union” is nevertheless conditioned on “faith”, and faith means not only Christ already indwelling but already a “break with sin”, and that “freedom from sin” is defined NOT IN FORENSIC TERMS but in ontological terms.
    4. The Holy Spirit’s work in us is read into Romans 6. Christ’s “break with sin” is read out of Romans 6. Justification is left out of “union”, and “sanctification” is put back into “union” and not seen as only a result. The second Adam theme is being confined to Romans 5.
    5. So supposedly we have this “double grace”, and sanctification is by grace also. But also sanctification is a synergy, where works by grace are different than works without grace, and thus sanctification by grace is by both grace and works. And Gaffin quotes Machen to support the point.

    Beware of “mysterious math”.

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  499. John, nobody here is denying the need for faith or the cleansing of the heart. The question is about if faith is a condition in order to imputation, or an immediate result of God’s imputation.

    To begin to understand the use Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4, we need to know that “as righteousness” should be translated “unto righteousness”. (See Robert Haldane’s commentary, Banner of Truth). That’s important to see, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t explain the imputation.

    Whether we see imputation as the transfer of something, or if we see imputation as the declaration of something (without a transfer, or after a transfer), what is the “it” which is being imputed? No matter if we have gone to great lengths to say that “it” is not credited as righteousness but only unto righteousness, what is “it” and why is God imputing “it”?

    The “new perspective” tells us the imputation is without a transfer, and that it only means declaring that certain folks are in the covenant. In this way of thinking, “it is imputed” simply means that God declares people just without talking about how and why they got that way.

    “Faith” in Galatians 3:5-8 is defined in two ways: not by works of the law, and the gospel preached to Abraham. God did not say to Abraham: if you believe, then I will bless you. God said, I will bless you without cause, not only so that you will believe but also so that in your offspring there will be one who will bring in the righteousness for the elect alone required by the law.

    The “it” which is imputed by God to Abraham is the obedient bloody death of Abraham’s seed Jesus Christ for the elect alone.

    (John Murray not only taught that Christ died in some sense only for the elect, but also taught nine reasons that faith was not the righteousness imputed. I like his reasons, and you can look them up in his commentary on Romans. But still, at the end of the day, Murray claimed that every honest exegete would have to agree with him that Genesis 15 does teach that faith was what God imputes.)

    Romans 4:24-25 “IT will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised up for our justification.”

    1. Christ and His death are the IT. Faith is not the IT. Christ and His death are the object of faith. Christ and His death are the IT credited by God.

    2. We can distinguish but never separate His person and work. Also we can distinguish but never separate his death and his resurrection.

    3. God counts according to truth. God counts righteousness as righteousness!

    4.. The righteousness counted as righteousness is not our righteousness (not our works of faith) but legally “transferred” to us when Christ legally marries us, so that what is His is still His but now ours also.

    5. Justification is not only the righteousness. Justification happens when God imputes the righteousness to the elect.

    6. Imputation means two different things. One, the transfer, the legal sharing of what belongs to another. Two, the declaration. God is justified, declared to be just, without legal transfer. But God does not count the elect to be just without legal transfer.

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  500. Mark, I thought I made it clear that I understand “the question is about if faith is a condition in order to imputation (or faith is a condition in order for imputation to take place), or an immediate result of God’s imputation. My question about the cleansing of the heart was to make the point that maybe faith is the condition for the cleansing of the heart rather than a condition for the imputation to take place. Faith being connected to the work of the Holy Spirit rather than the work of God the Father.

    This doctrine of justification seems to be like a puzzle in the scriptures that need to be placed together to make the whole picture come into clearer focus. The various scripture passages are the pieces of the puzzle that we have to sort out. That is the way I am approaching this now. That could be a wrong approach though.

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  501. Mark, that did not help clarify anything to me. Now you are saying that God imputes not only our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us (something that belongs to another) but faith is something imputed to us too. Also, that God legally marries us to Christ- huh? You keep adding things that happen in the imputation. Please sort that out for me.

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  502. Mark,

    I think I see what you mean by your last Gaffin (unionists) post. That is very subtle stuff and it does seem to make sanctification something that we have to cooperate with grace in order to reap its benefits (syergism on our part helped along by the power of the Holy Spirit that now dwells in us). In a a previous post you had this to say about Romans chapter 6: “The context of Romans 6 is the righteousness of Christ in Romans 5:21. However, I will start with verse 18 to give a better context to what is being said: “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is not the righteousness produced in us by the indwelling of the Spirit. The reason given in Romans 6 for why sin shall not have dominion over you is “that you are not under law.” I know that now usually gets read redemptive-historically, so that it means that now that you are in the new covenant and have the indwelling, you can now do habitually better. But I think it means: you are not under guilt anymore, because as long as you were under guilt, you are free from righteousness (or, you do not believe you possess the righteousness of Christ-my addition), unable to please God. Romans 6 speaks of Christ being under the dominion of sin. Christ was never corrupt or unregenerate. Christ was under the imputed guilt of the elect, but is no longer, and when his elect are now placed into that same death, they are no longer guilty.”

    Mark also added this in a previous post: When folks say, “it’s first of all about union”, they don’t usually define union, but it usually means, “it’s not all about the justification of the ungodly.” And if that doesn’t mean regeneration, it does mean the Holy Spirit and faith and whatever else is needed to make sure that the justification is not of those who are still ungodly.”

    Another post of Mark: “I would submit that it’s the faith alone which can obscure the forensic nature of justification, justification is not because of faith, but because of the righteousness Christ obtained in history. When God imputes that righteousness, the result is justification through faith.”

    Another post of Mark: “The main idea of Mike Horton’s ‘covenantal ontology’ is that justification is not an inert but a living word, on a par with creation ex nihilio (p. 247)- (I did check out this page and Horton did in fact say this in his 3rd book of his Divine Drama series). I understand when folks worry that this collapses justification with regeneration (meaning, I think, that justification comes before regeneration-my addition), but I think Horton is talking about God’s justification of the ungodly as God’s performative act that then causes the work of the Spirit in the elect believer. Romans 8:10 teaches Christ in you and “the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Galatians 4:6 teaches that “because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. This then leads us to 2Cor. 5:14-15: “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therfore all have died; and he died for all (this sounds like universal atonement to me, but I digress and I know all does not necessarily have to be a universal term- my addition), that those who live (this may not included all then- only those who live or have received the imputation) might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

    I want to continue on here through the end of the chapter because I believe the remaining versus show us that it is the imputation which makes us a new creation. Starting at verse 16-21: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God (notice not God the Son or God the Holy Spirit-my addition), who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

    Now that is good news. And I think it proves that the new creation is not something the Holy Spirit does but it the direct result of the imputation by God the Father himself. So, a lot of stuff does happen as a direct result of the imputation and the imputation seems to be the foundation of the doctrine of justification. The work of the Holy Spirt, ie., regeneration, repentance and faith, does seem to follow the imputation from these scripture passages.

    As an aside, it seems to me that there is batlle going on between Westminster East and Westminster West about justification priority and union priority. Those at Westminster East prefer the union priority and those at Westminster West the justification priority. There is very subtle stuff going on here .

    Here is one last post by Mark: “How is the reconciliation received? (Rom. 5:11,17). The Gaffinists (unionists) always assume that the application of reconciliation is by faith. But Berkoff and A.A. Hodge (and Horton and Bruce McCormack) argue that reconciliation is received by God’s imputation with faith as the immediate result. If you take a look at the two versus in question, you find a passive receiving. And there’s nothing more passive than a legally dead ungodly sinner being baptized by God (without hands- meaning no water here according to Mark, but I have questions about that) into the death of Christ.” Verse 11 states: “More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” Verse 17 states: “If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

    The only problem with all this is Romans 5:1-2: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” I let someone else try to explain that verse.

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  503. I think the answer to the problem of Romans 5:1-2, which seems to imply that the imputation occurs after faith (not faith being the result of the imputation) and is applied to us by the Spirit is the comment by Brian many posts ago. He was the one who introduced everyone to the idea of Bavinck, which Horton seems to have picked up on too, that there is an “active justification” and a “passive justification.” Here is what Brian had to say about this:

    Brian
    Posted September 12, 2011 at 7:27 am | Permalink
    Bavinck 4.201:
    “Yet, although Calvin proved his independence also in the doctrine of justification, he did not solve all the problems that present themselves in the study of this article of faith. This applies especially to the relaationship of justification to election and satisfaction, on one hand, and to sanctification and glorification, on the other. If justification has a place somewhere between the two, there is always a reason to connect it more with the preceding or more with the following group of benefits, depending on the choice made, and justification itself acquires a different meaning. If one’s purpose is to maintain the objective forensic character of justification, it is natural to tie it closely with election and satisfaction. It then becomes the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, which took place long before, in the gospel, in the resurrection of Christ, or even from eternity, and is then appropriated much later by the subject in faith. Then that faith is no more than a vessel or instrument, a merely passive thing, so that it becomes hard to derive from it the new life of sanctification. On the other hand, if a person is focused more on practical than on speculative interests, one naturally tries to forge a close connection between justification and faith. In that case, justification coincides with the benefit of the forgiveness of sins, which is received and enjoyed in faith, and faith becomes communion with Christ. It has Christ dwell in us through his Spirit, assures us of God’s benevolence toward us, and pours out new life and new powers in our hearts.”
    […]
    “As a rule, Reformed theologians tried to avoid two extremes [i.e., favoring one over the other] and to that end soon began to employ the distinction between active and passive justification.”

    Worth reading in full.

    I think Brian (and Bavinck) is referring to the “active justification” as the “performative act of God” (which is what Horton called it) where God imputes our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us. This takes away our guilt and the power of sin which is sins ability to condemn us. Remember that Horton also stated that this act of God was similar to God creating a “new creation” ex nihilio, or, out of nothing good in us (the ungodly). I personally think there is a distinction between the “new creation” and being “born again.” The new creation is something God the Father does, while the “born again” or regeneration is something God the Holy Spirit does. The new creation is the result of the imputation but the regeneration is the result of the the gifts of faith and repentance which the Holy Spirit gives to us. The agent or one elected by God is passive in the “active justification” but active in the “passive justification.” I could be wrong about this but that is what makes sense to me of this puzzling puzzle.

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  504. Brian also made this interesting comment but I am not sure what he is talking about here:

    When Bavinck and Berkhof affirm these two different senses, I consider this a case of careful nuancing. It’s only contradiction if you can’t live with tension. But you’ve got to read it for yourself before you dismiss it.

    I’m happy to say that faith and repentance, as obligations, are “associated” with the gospel. These are especially appropriate in response to the gospel–faith as looking extraspecitvely to the mediator, and repentance as the first act of obedience flowing from faith. But strictly speaking, they are not required by the gospel itself. To say that they are puts you squarely in the neonomian camp. The Marrow Men do some fantastic work on just this question–whether faith and repentance are required by the law. Read the queries that were put to them on the occasion of the Marrow controversy. Again, read it before you write it off. In this case, a good dose of historical theology can set straight a lot of the fuzziness that comes with swallowing whole the “all-embracing” sorts of doctrinal assertions.

    I don’t know who these Marrow Men are- does anyone know “what fantantic work in just this question-whether faith and repentance are required by law” is? What is this Marrow controversy?

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  505. Mark McCulley also made this remark in response to some of Brian’s comments:

    mark mcculley
    Posted September 11, 2011 at 5:01 pm | Permalink
    I very much appreciate Brian’s post because it shows that this is NOT “merely” an abstract discussion about the order of salvation for individuals. Brian wrote:”The union folks talk as if when they tell you what the law says (since the law tells you that you should have more faith than you do), that what they’re actually telling you is the gospel. They’re not. Keep telling me that since I’m united to Christ that I can overcome indwelling sin, and you’ll keep driving me to ask “How that can be?”, since my life does not give much manifest evidence that this is true. Instead, you drive me to a reflex act of faith, calling it a direct act of faith, and drive me to introspection, which is deadly before or apart from driving me to Christ.”

    After all has been said, what has been done? What the Spirit does in us cannot satisfy God’s law. What has been done that has satisfied God’s law for the elect is Christ’s death for the elect, and it is the elect’s legal union with that death which keeps them off probation. Think of Romans 5:21: “as sin reigned in death, grace also reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

    What is this righteousness by which the justified elect reign? It is NOT the Spirit “through Christ in us” giving us the power to do the law. The righteousness by which the justified elect reign is the “one man’s obedience” (Romans 5:19). Those who receive by imputation the reconciliation (5:11) and the “free gift of righteousness” (5:17) are legally constituted righteous by the one man’s righteousness.

    I have my righteousness not in an example, not in a new power or a new potential. I have my righteousness in the One who is not only my representative but also my substitute, in the One who died for me a death which God counts as my death. The anabaptists and Wesley and Baxter were very anxious about the “antinomian consequences” of that. They thought it “cut the nerve” of the motive for morality. Thus they conditioned the blessings of salvation on what they thanked their god for doing in the sinner.

    As a person who remains both a pacifist (and a credo-baptist), my joy and hope is not that God now makes me love my enemies. After all, after all has been said, nothing has been done. (Some would even say that’s what pacifism is: doing nothing!)

    Even when it comes to “reflex faith”, I make my calling and election sure by looking again to Christ crucified outside me as He is revealed in the “gospel, which is the power of salvation”. In this gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. And that righteousness is “in Christ” because it is the obedience (even unto death) done by the One Man.

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  506. When all this is said, I still have questions about the role the sacraments play. However, I am leaning towards, that they strengthen our faith because our faith easily gets weakened. They point us to a continuing feeding on Christ (by looking back at our Baptism) and participating in the Lord’s Supper each week. This helps to assure us that the still indwelling sin we struggle against has certainly been dealt with when God imputed our sin to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us. We don’t think the sacraments save us but we do continually feed on Christ when we make use of them. We hear the Gospel when the Word is preached and taught, but we see, taste and feel it when we participate in the Lord’s Supper. These means of grace strengthen and increase our faith in what Christ did for us. I’m sure some of you will disagree with me here. We also participate in the means of grace corporately which also makes us a part of the covenant community. We are no longer individual lone rangers easily tossed to and fro by those forces which weaken our faith.

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  507. I thought I learned a lot this holiday weekend so I am probably being too wordy which probably not too many people are interested in. I am writing it down so I will reinforce it and remember it. This post I found when taking the copious amount of notes I did from previous posts. It is from Brian again and is one of the best things I have read about assurance which is what this debate is really all about. Brian says this:

    Brian
    Posted September 10, 2011 at 11:45 am | Permalink
    Jeff,

    Red herring. My point is that assurance of union always comes first through assurance of justification, and this is because justification is promised to the ungodly.

    Union, as an “all-embracing” category, ought to produce the kind of fruit that includes obedience. The blessing of justification does not produce (or, as you and others have pointed out, “cause”) obedience. So if the focus of my assurance is on what union ought to manifest, then I’m looking at both faith and works. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as it is put in its proper place (priority). These broader fruits of union, which include obedience, are indeed a secondary source of assurance–there’s a reason why the “inward evidence” of graces is listed second, rather than first, in WCF 18.3. The primary source of assurance is rather found in the first thing listed in 18.3, the promises of God, something external to us. Because that promise is made to those who are themselves ungodly, here is how we know that God receive sinners and that these promises do apply to them, even when the fruits of union (obedience included) are not evident to others or to themselves. If all I need to be, covenantally, before God, in order to qualify for receiving justification is “ungodly,” then I am confident that I meet this qualification, and this confidence gives him further assurance that all the rest of it will come from God in Christ. If God is for me (a matter of favor/forensic standing), then how will he not also give me all things (all blessings and fruits of union in full)?

    The real issue behind this debate is the nature of assurance and upon what it ultimately/primarily rests.

    I would certainly allow Brian to be my Pastor- plus he knows how to tame the Victorious Christian Life types like John T, however, that is another story.

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  508. OK. Long overdue.

    Theses on justification and faith

    (1) In the Scripture, faith is presented as prior to justification.

    (2) This priority is a causal priority, the priority that an instrument has prior to its effect.

    (3) There are no Scriptures which suggest that justification may be divided into two portions, an active portion and a passive portion.

    (4) Rather, justification is univocal in Scripture, referring to the declaration of “righteous” in the courtroom of God (and thus encompassing both active and passive senses).

    (5) It is this same univocal justification which is received “by faith.”

    (6) And this is the understanding of Scripture that is presented in both Calvin and the Westminster Standards.

    (7) So that there is no room in the Standards for a view in which our “active justification” is accomplished prior to faith.

    (8) The proper term for the fact that Jesus paid for the sins of the elect at the cross is the atonement.

    (9) The atonement is the objective ground of our faith, that which the Spirit uses to create faith in us.

    —-

    The real issue is to prove (1) and (2). Here we go.

    First, there are many passages that suggest that faith precedes justification. These include Gen 15.6; Mark 8.12; John 1.12; 3.15-16; 3.36; 5.24; 6.40, 8.24, 47; Acts 10.34, 13.38-39; 15.8-9; 16.31; Rom 10.4, 9-10.

    Second, this suggestion is confirmed by passages that directly teach that faith is the instrument by which we are justified.

    To forestall a misunderstanding: the term “instrument” here views faith as a receptive organ that relies and rests on Christ’s finished work alone. In no sense is faith imputed to the believer.

    Anyways, those passages include the whole of Romans 1 – 5, as well Ephesians 2.7-9, and Phil. 3.9.

    Romans 3 is particularly telling:

    But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. — Rom 3.21 – 31 ESV

    Here, the English phrases “justified by faith” and “through faith” translate the Greek δια πιστεως, a preposition of agency; or in v. 28, the Dative of Instrument πιστει. Both grammatically and contextually, it is unquestionable that Paul is teaching that justification comes through the agency of faith.

    Faith precedes justification as an instrument precedes an effect.

    The same construction occurs in Eph 2.7-9: For by grace you have been saved through faith δια πιστεως. We might argue that “being saved” encompasses more than justification; but it surely does not fail to encompass justification!

    And in Phil 3.9 we have it again: Paul desires to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness that comes through the law, but a righteousness that comes through faith and is upon faith: την δια πιστεως χριστου την εκ θεου δικαιοσυνην επι τη πιστει. Here, επι with the dative is either (unlikely) temporal, “at the time of” or (likely) causative, “on the basis of.”

    Third, that faith is an instrument, and not an effect, of justification is proved by the fact that faith is commanded “in order to” be justified. This occurs in several places in Scripture:

    John 12.36: While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. … ινα υιοι φωτος γενησθε

    John 20.31 these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. …και ινα πιστευοντες ζωην εχητε

    Gal 2.16 yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. …επιστευσαμεν ινα δικαιωθωμεν εκ πιστεως χριστου

    In each case, the Greek ινα indicates a cause/effect relationship: becoming a son of God, having life, being justified are the effects; faith is the cause.

    Finally, we need to look at the broad scope of the arguments in Romans and Galatians. At no point does Paul argue that we are given faith on account of our justification; at every point he argues that we are justified through faith.

    This is particularly noteworthy in Romans 5.1

    Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

    The justification that comes to us through faith is the justification that gives us peace with God. It is not, as Ursinus would have it, a consciousness of that peace. No, from the flow of Romans it is clear that this is the change of God’s anger towards us into peace, the so-called “active justification” in the sight of God. This is what we have received through faith.

    And thus Calvin, Luther, and the Confession understand it.

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  509. So why am I arguing a causal priority instead of “logical priority”?

    For a simple reason. Having observed many a discussion concerning logical priorities (both here and also in the supra/infralapsarian debates), I have become convinced that the term “logical order” has no meaning unless the ordering principle is first stipulated.

    A is logically prior to B — if the ordering principle is “alphabetical order.”
    B is logically prior to A — if the ordering principle is “reverse alphabetical order.”
    E is prior to them both — if the ordering principle is “frequency of use in English.”

    And so it goes with the assertion that “justification is logically prior to faith.”

    What does that even mean? Usually, someone will explain it as, “A is logically prior to B if A is a necessary precondition for B.”

    But what does “pre” mean? It means “before, according to some ordering principle.” If that principle is not stipulated up front, then the claim of logical priority is without meaning and is void.

    So: My account of priority is a causal account. There could be other orderings, but they must state up front what the ordering principle is to be.

    DGH, this is somewhat pitched in your direction. You’ve explained the “priority of justification” as

    * Justification is of central importance.
    * Justification is the lens through which we understand the rest of salvation
    * Justification is the cause of sanctification. Wait, no it’s not. Well, if it is, how bad would that really be?

    There needs to be frank clarity as to what ordering principle we are talking about before we can even understand, much less evaluate, claims of logical priority. Are we ordering according to importance, ground, proper pedagogy, cause, what?

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