Tag: justification

How 2K Might Have Helped Stellman

Published on by D. G. Hart94 Comments

I hope Jason Stellman does not consider this piling on. He is a friend and I mean to be respectful of his decision even if I lament his loss of Protestant convictions. At the same time, since some have invoked the two-kingdoms theology as a plausible factor in Stellman’s resignation, a response is in order. And Jason’s reasons for leaving the PCA provide yet another occasion to clarify the 2k position with which he once identified.

First, on the matter of sola scriptura, 2k theology does not pit ecclesiology against the word of God but in fact limits the ministry of the church precisely to what Scripture teaches. At the risk of beating a dead Machen, the hero of conservative Presbyterians put the matter this way in his defense of his refusal to comply with the PCUSA’s Mandate of 1934 (which deemed illegal the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions):

The Bible forbids a man to substitute any human authority for the Word of God. . . . In demanding that I shall shift my message to suit the shifting votes of an Assembly that is elected anew every year, the General Assembly is attacking Christian liberty; but what should never be forgotten is that to attack Christian liberty is to attack the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

I desire to say very plainly to the Presbytery of New Brunswick that as a minister I have placed myself under the orders of Jesus Christ as his will is made known to me through the Scriptures. That is at the heart and core of Protestantism. It is also at the heart and core of the teaching of the Word of God. It cannot give it up.

If I read the Bible aright, a man who obtains his message from the pronouncements of presbyteries or General Assemblies instead of from the Bible is not truly a minister of Jesus Christ. He may wear the garb of a minister, but he is not a minister in the sight of God.

By the issuance of this command, the General Assembly has attacked the authority of the Bible in very much the same way in which it is attacked by the Roman Catholic church. The Roman Catholic church does not deny the authority of the Bible. Indeed, it defends the truth of the Bible, and noble service is being rendered in that defense, in our times, by Roman Catholic scholars. But we are opposed to the Roman Catholic position for one great central reason – because it holds that there is a living human authority that has a right to give an authoritative interpretation of the Bible. We are opposed to it because it holds that the seat of authority in religion is not just the Bible but the Bible interpreted authoritatively by the church. That, we hold, is a deadly error indeed: it puts fallible men in a place of authority that belongs only to the Word of God.

The point here is not to claim that Machen settles the dilemmas with which Stellman wrestled or that Machen’s clear assertion of biblical authority addresses adequately the squishiness of interpreting and applying an infallible word from God. Instead Machen shows that the spirituality of the church (a variety of 2K), affirmed sola scriptura, Christian liberty, and the Lordship of Christ as part and parcel of Presbyterianism. To the extent the church has authority, Christ delegates it and limits ecclesiastical authority to the Word of God. As practically every Reformed church affirms:

All church power is only ministerial and declarative, for the Holy Scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. No church judicatory may presume to bind the conscience by making laws on the basis of its own authority; all its decisions should be founded upon the Word of God. “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship” (Confession of Faith, Chapter XX, Section 2). (OPC, BCO, III.3)

In other words, 2K’s understanding of church authority is bound up with and limited by sola scriptura. 2K is not the window through which to fly to Rome.

Stellman’s second reason for leaving the PCA concerns his change of mind on sola fide. He no longer believes that justification by faith alone and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness is basic to New Testament teaching. Instead he believes that the Bible teaches that justification comes through faith working by love. (This is, by the way, a Protestant form of argument – what the Bible teaches as opposed to what tradition or the church instructs.) I myself disagree with Jason’s reading of the New Testament, not to mention that experientially I have no hope apart from Christ’s righteousness, (though purgatory may provide a way out of this problem). As Bill Smith said:

It seems that Mr. Stellman’s evolving view is that our acceptance with God depends not on an imputed righteousness alone but on an imparted, transformational righteousness. I can only say I hope he is wrong, because there is no way I am going to heaven if my going depends on anything at all other than the righteousness of Christ.

But the point here is not with justification per se but its relationship to 2K. Again, the two-kingdom theology is bound up with the material principle of the Reformation. In his inaugural lecture, David VanDrunen argued for the priority of justification to sanctification in the application of redemption and drew implications for 2K:

The civil kingdom is a realm in which judgment is always future, in which strict justice is administered based upon the talionic principle. The spiritual kingdom, on the other hand, is a realm in which judgment is passed/past, in which the talionic principle of strict, retaliatory justice is foresworn for the peaceful practice of turning the other cheek. The non-Christian moral life is characterized by the specter of judgment-to-come, by the obligation to obey so that, somehow, acceptance before God might be earned. The Christian moral life, on the other hand, is characterized by the profound, radical, and decisive act of justification already accomplished, such that one lives no longer in order to sustain the judgment but in response to that blessed judgment already rendered.

. . . these considerations have far-reaching implications for the church’s position in relation to the world, and to the state in particular. To put it simply, the church finds the state’s business foreign. As an institution that forsakes the lex talionis and refuses to take up the sword in judgment or even self-defense, it can have in some sense no cognizance at all of what the sword-bearing state does. The church acknowledges the state’s existence, thanks God for its work, and blesses her saints as they submit to its authority and join in its work, but how can the church itself dare to participate in or contribute to the state’s work? What a strange thing for an institution defined by its peacefulness and mercy to tell the state how to do its work of coercion. What a bizarre scenario when the office-bearers of the church, chosen and ordained in recognition of their knowledge and practice of the things that are above, make declamations on public policy as if they were experts on things that are here below. And certainly similar things could be said about the church’s forays into economic development and whatever other cultural work might promote an agenda of social transformation. How wise were our Reformed forebears who spoke of the spirituality of the church and the solely ministerial character of ecclesiastical authority. The church is the community of the justified; may her shepherds feed the sheep with the bread of heaven and leave uninfringed their liberty in regard to the affairs of earth.

Again, VanDrunen’s comments are not meant to end all debates. Some will undoubtedly take issue with both his views on union with Christ and on church and state. Still, the idea that 2K is some boutique doctrine that its advocates trot out to provoke, create a following, or use as a hobby horse is wrong. For most of the 2k advocates I know, the doctrine is bound up with teachings that are crucial to the Reformation and at the heart of Reformed Protestantism. Those who oppose 2k are not necessarily outside the Reformed camp. But if they affirm the material and formal principles of the Reformation, they are on the road to two-kingdom theology. If they deny 2k, they ride on a rocky road.

The Hits Keep Coming

Published on by D. G. Hart31 Comments

Just when I was recovering from the sobering news of Jason Stellman’s decision to leave the PCA along comes Carl Trueman’s double-whammy of heaping scorn upon those “for whom the doctrine of the church and 2K are all they ever seem to talk about.” (For Stellman’s response, go here.) Trueman’s is a remarkable performance since Trueman admits his own 2k inclinations and reports on those in Sovereign Grace circles who also concede a better doctrine of the church would have saved them some grief. He also acknowledges that 2k avoids “the excesses of Christian America, Theonomy, and the various social gospels — left and right.” So Trueman is in the 2k camp, as his own book on religion and politics in the United States attests, along with his own high regard for Luther. But he is apparently not extreme about it, thus protecting his standing seemingly among the gospel’s co-allies. His is supposedly a moderate 2k despite his invocations of Marx, Nietzsche, and Led Zeppelin. This is where his decision to echo John Frame’s swipe at Machen’s warrior children comes in handy even if it is a blow that conflicts with Trueman’s own combative posture, as the Peter Lillback ‘s foreword to Republocrat confirms. (Trueman is a fan of boxing, after all.)

As unnecessary and contradictory as Trueman’s jab at 2k was, I don’t readily associate him with Rabbi Bret who also used Stellman’s announcement as yet another proof of 2k’s errors and harm. Never mind that the Rabbi’s interpretation of 2k’s dualism as the path into Roman Catholicism’s nature/grace divide would seemingly indict Trueman’s own positive accounts of Thomas Aquinas. The attacks on 2k never need to be consistent in order to be consistently negative. As Bill Smith remarked to me by email:

I believe that soon high churchism and 2K theology will be blamed for global warming, the lagging economy, the high price of gas, the decline of western civilization, the composition of RUF tunes and their twangy singing by females, the election of Barak Obama, praise bands and worship leaders, and the banning of biggie sized soft drinks. And, I am not surprised. I could see it coming.

Still, it’s a curious way to respond to Stellman since not even the Baylys used the occasion to pounce on 2k. Instead, they took Stellman’s decision as an occasion to go after Peter Leithart’s weak affirmation of Protestantism. Instead of affirming justification, Leithart rejects the exclusivity of Rome’s sacramental theology. Going to Rome will leave Protestants outside the sacramental fold. For the Baylys the division between Rome and Protestants is all about the doctrine of justification.

That was encouraging to read even if their critique of Leithart and defense of justification came a little close to stepping on the toes of their hero in the culture wars, Doug Wilson, who is in some way Leithart’s boss and fellow minister at one of Moscow’s CREC congregations. Wilson also could not help but reflect on the disputes between Leithart and Stellman in the Presbytery of the Northwest. He also welcomed Stellman’s coming around to the “biblical” understanding of justification:

With regard to sola fide, he is quite right to see the very narrow position he was nurtured in as contrary to the teaching of the New Testament. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to sinners, and the instrument of a God-given faith is what receives that gracious gift. But the gift received is that of living faith, breathing faith, loving faith, the only kind of faith the living God bestows. It is sola fide, not nuda fide. Stellman was wrong to identify his previous narrow view of sola fide as the doctrine of sola fide itself.

Where that puts Wilson and other Federal Visionaries on the matter of the Reformed churches’ confessions and Roman Catholic teaching is a mystery since Stellman led the prosecution of Leithart precisely on the conviction that the latter’s teaching was contrary to the Westminster Standards. Now that Stellman no longer finds the confession’s teaching agreeable, he has done what he thinks Leithart should have done — leave the PCA (going to Rome may be another matter). Meanwhile — keep your eye on the bouncing ball, Wilson agrees with Stellman on justification but doesn’t think he should leave the Protestant fold.

That confusion over justification — whether Federal Visionaries actually adhere to the Reformation’s teaching or whether their views are beyond the pale and more compatible with what the Reformers opposed — is the best place to situate Stellman’s regrettable decision. The source of this confusion was not 2k or ecclesiology. It grew prominent in the teaching of Norman Shepherd which gained a hearing among the proponents of Federal Vision and received defense from John Frame, the man who first ridiculed those who identify with Machen.

Scoring points against 2k of course has its appeal and plays well in certain circles. But 2k and ecclesiology have virtually nothing to do with this. If you want to look for the clearest defense of Reformed Protestantism and its teaching on salvation, the church, and worship — convictions and practices that were pretty central to the sixteenth century — you’d be clueless to ignore those who promote 2k.

Where's Waldo Wednesday: Precision Puh-leeze

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So why is it that justification prioritists (JPs) regularly receive the charge of making justification the CAUSE of sanctification when in fact they don’t? But to the unionists’ ear, to assert the logical priority of justification to sanctification (and no cheating by sneaking in definitive sanctification) is to say that justification CAUSES sanctification (often, anyway). (In fact, the powers of unionists to read meanings into words and statements are well-nigh remarkable.)

But why is it that when unionists use the explicit language of “CAUSE,” they are merely asserting the TRUTH? Here I point to Rick Phillips’ recent post at Ref 21:

5. Justification does not cause Sanctification. Sanctification, like Justification, is caused by union with Christ through faith (Rom. 6:1-14). Just as Christ justifies, Christ also sanctifies his people (1 Cor. 1:30; Col. 3:12-17). For this reason, the idea that we need only preach justification in order to gain sanctification is contrary to the biblical pattern. Paul, for instance, does not preach justification so that sanctification will occur, but rather he preaches sanctification itself (Rom. 6:12-14; 12:1-2, etc.). Peter also declares “Be holy” (1 Pet. 1:15). This being the case, gospel preaching does not consist merely of preaching Christ for justification, but also consists of preaching Christ for sanctification.

Again, the quick identification of union with almost everything good is striking — Union and Christ become synonyms in this argument. But is that what people think when they hear the word union? They think Christ? Well, why is it that unionists don’t think Christ when they hear the word justification?

Notice too the lack of precision in this post regarding the kind of union Phillips is describing. Is it federal, decretal, or mystical? I assume it’s mystical, but given the lack of a technical lexicon regarding union, those who refer to it so often and so positively may actually help by greater precision?

And finally, what kind of CAUSE are we talking about here? Aristotle held to a variety of causes, Suarez to even more. So if we are going to use causal language, might not some of those scholastic distinctions made by Reformed Orthodoxy be helpful? Or is this another example of how biblical theology sometimes disregards the precision of systematic theology?

Where's Waldo Wednesday: Dazed and Confused

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Why is it that discussions of the law and sanctification invariably circle back to union with Christ? My own hunch, expressed several times, is that union becomes the way to cement sanctification to justification, especially if neither is prior to the other but union precedes both. This way, supposedly, Protestants can look Roman Catholics straight in the eye and to the charge that justification by faith alone is antinomian reply, “pound sand.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where’s Waldo (A Day After) Wednesday: Someone Needs to Call A Union Summit

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Over at Justin Taylor’s blog comes word that Dane Ortlund has published an article on the relationship between justification and sanctification in the writings of Bavinck and Berkouwer. The summary point is as follows:

. . . these two Dutch Reformed thinkers are united in their understanding of justification as the self-conscious means of sanctification. The point is not that justification must be viewed (logically) as preceding sanctification rather than the other way round. Nor is the point that justification provides the ground for sanctification. Nor are they simply agreeing that sanctification must not be thought of as moralistic self-effort. On all this orthodox Protestant theology of various stripes is agreed.

Whether or not Ortlund is correct, his point about the priority of justification is one that union proponents may want to consider when arguing that the focus on justification is a form of Luther envy.

Ortlund goes on:

Bavinck and Berkouwer are making a more penetrating point. They understand that it is quite possible to decry self-resourced progress in holiness while retaining an unhealthy disconnect between justification and sanctification that sees justification as something beyond which one
‘graduates’ in Christian living. They argue that justification is to be seen as ‘settled’ in that the verdict is irreversibly delivered, yet justification is not to be seen as ‘settled’ in the sense that one must now therefore move on to sanctification. Justification is settled materially but retains critical ongoing epistemic import in Christian living. . . . We are justified by self-renouncing faith; we are sanctified by that same faith.

But this is not where Ortlund ends. For some reason he feels compelled to evaluate B&B Theological Enterprises according to standards established by Jonathan Edwards, where Ortlund finds the doctrine of union as the larger rubric for a holistic soteriology. He writes:

Justification is not only relevant for entrance into the people of God and for final acquittal, but, in between these two events, is the critical factor in the mind of the believer for healthy progressive sanctification.

This insight should, however, be placed into the larger soteriological framework of union with Christ. As has been argued by many in the tradition to which Bavinck and Berkouwer belong, union with Christ should be seen as the broadest soteriological rubric, within which both justification and sanctification are subsumed. . . . Had Berkouwer listened more closely to an American strand of his own Reformed tradition (especially Jonathan Edwards), he could have had the more balanced view of Bavinck while retaining his basic point as to the critical role justification plays in ongoing sanctification.

After reading this I’m left scratching my head once again when the subject of union comes up. First, I thought the Dutch Reformed were the most important for the recent recovery of the doctrine of union. Why they’d have to read Edwards to find the genuine article is not exactly the way I have heard the doctrine explained. Are union proponents reading from the same history of doctrine?

Second, a monergistic understanding of sanctification or union is of no great help in the Christian life the way it is commonly explained, as if a rebuttal to Rome’s charges of antinomianism. If union is the work of the Spirit, as is sanctification, how can Protestants claim that these doctrines or realities become motivations for good works? Rome’s logic was that once God does it all in salvation, a believer has no reason to be virtuous. Of course, Protestants rightly respond that the work of the Spirit is a reality that is conforming believers more to the image of Christ. Good works are inevitable such that those that are justified are also sanctified. But conformity to the image of Christ is not the work of a believer. It is the work of the Spirit.

In which case, Rome’s accusation stands. The Spirit-wrought nature of salvation in the Protestant scheme has an antinomian impulse and appearance because good works are not the substance or catalyst for any of the blessings of Christ’s work.

So I’m still wondering how great a breakthrough union is. It is a thought almost as befuddling where to find union in the history of Reformed doctrine.

Where's Waldo Wednesday: Can Union Comfort the Way Justification Does?

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The following passage from Luther’s daily readings left me thinking:

What more could God do? How could a heart restrain itself from being happy, glad, and obedient in God and Christ? What work or suffering could befall to which it would not gladly submit, singing with love and joyful praise to God? If it fails to do so, faith has certainly broken down. The more faith there is, the more joy and freedom there is; the less faith, the less joy. Behold, this is the true Christian salvation and freedom from the Law and from the judgment of the Law, that is, from sin and death. Not that there is no Law or death, but that both death and Law become as if they were not. The Law does not lead to sin, nor death to doom, but faith walks through them into everlasting life.

I know, Luther does not mention justification but he might as well since we are justified by faith and our acquittal in justification is precisely what we need to beat the rap of guilt for sin and the accompanying penalty of death. I suppose someone might be able to write about union in such glowing ways, but I doubt it would make as much sense in the forensic world of law, guilt, judgment, and acquittal.

Is there more to salvation than justification? Sure. But can any other doctrine in the realm of the application of redemption pull off what justification by faith alone does? I doubt it.

Forensic Friday: Calvin on Trent

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

Where's Waldo Wednesday

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I am still wondering about the advisability of turning union into a polemical doctrine that divides Reformed Protestants and Lutherans. Benjamin Warfield supplies support for that wonder.

CALVINISM AND LUTHERANISM

It is unfortunate that a great body of the scientific discussion which, since Max Goebel (“Die religiose Eigenthumlichkeit der lutherischen und der reformirten Kirchen,” Bonn, 1837) first clearly posited the problem, has been carried on somewhat vigorously with a view to determining the fundamental principle of Calvinism, has sought particularly to bring out its contrast with some other theological tendency, commonly with the sister Protestant tendency of Lutheranism. Undoubtedly somewhat different spirits inform Calvinism and Lutheranism. And undoubtedly the distinguishing spirit of Calvinism is rooted not in some extraneous circumstance of its antecedents or origin — as, for example, Zwingli’s tendency to intellectualism, or the superior humanistic culture and predilections of Zwingli and Calvin, or the democratic instincts of the Swiss, or the radical rationalism of the Reformed leaders as distinguished from the merely modified traditionalism of the Lutherans — but in its formative principle.

But it is misleading to find the formative principle of either type of Protestantism in its difference from the other; they have infinitely more in common than in distinction. And certainly nothing could be more misleading than to represent them (as is often done) as owing their differences to their more pure embodiment respectively of the principle of predestination and that of justification by faith. The doctrine of predestination is not the formative principle of Calvinism, the root from which it springs. It is one of its logical consequences, one of the branches which it has inevitably thrown out. It has been firmly embraced and consistently proclaimed by Calvinists because it is an implicate of theism, is directly given in the religious consciousness, and is an absolutely essential element in evangelical religion, without which its central truth of complete dependence upon the free mercy of a saving God can not be maintained. And so little is it a peculiarity of the Reformed theology, that it underlay and gave its form and power to the whole Reformation movement; which was, as from the spiritual point of view, a great revival of religion, so, from the doctrinal point of view, a great revival of Augustinianism. There was accordingly no difference among the Reformers on this point: Luther and Melanchthon and the compromising Butzer were no less jealous for absolute predestination than Zwingli and Calvin. Even Zwingli could not surpass Luther in sharp and unqualified assertion of it: and it was not Calvin but Melanchthon who gave it a formal place in his primary scientific statement of the elements of the Protestant faith. . . . Just as little can the doctrine of justification by faith be represented as specifically Lutheran. Not merely has it from the beginning been a substantial element in the Reformed faith, but it is only among the Reformed that it has retained or can retain its purity, free from the tendency to become a doctrine of justification on account of faith. . . . Here, too, the difference between the two types of Protestantism is one of degree, not of kind . . . .

Lutheranism, the product of a poignant sense of sin, born from the throes of a guilt-burdened soul which can not be stilled until it finds peace in God’s decree of justification, is apt to rest in this peace; while Calvinism, the product of an overwhelming vision of God, born from the reflection in the heart of man of the majesty of a God who will not give His glory to another, can not pause until it places the scheme of salvation itself in relation to a complete world-view, in which it becomes subsidiary to the glory of the Lord God Almighty. Calvinism asks with Lutheranism, indeed, that most poignant of all questions, What shall I do to be saved? and answers it as Lutheranism answers it. But the great question which presses upon it is, How shall God be glorified? It is the contemplation of God and zeal for His honor which in it draws out the emotions and absorbs endeavor; and the end of human as of all other existence, of salvation as of all other attainment, is to it the glory of the Lord of all. Full justice is done in it to the scheme of redemption and the experience of salvation, because full justice is done in it to religion itself which underlies these elements of it. It begins, it centers, it ends with the vision of God in His glory: and it sets itself before all things to render to God His rights in every sphere of life- activity. (The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, Vol. 5, pp. 357-58)

Granted, the worldview rhetoric is not the most appealing, but we try to serve red meat occasionally here at Old Life to the tried and true transformationalists.

Where's Waldo Wednesday: Cornering the Market on Suffering

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During interactions with advocates of union with Christ I have frequently heard remarks that suggest this doctrine takes account of the believer’s suffering in breathtaking ways. In fact, union is apparently so effective in accounting for the miseries of this life that it needs to be a regular part of counsel and preaching to Christians. The logic goes something like this: because Christ suffered and was glorified as a reward for enduring his suffering, so the Christian, by virtue of his or her union with Christ, will live a life of suffering before inheriting the riches of glorification. In other words, the pattern of the Christian life is rooted in union: just as Christ was humiliated and exalted, so the believer will suffer in this life (humiliation) and then in the life to come be glorified (exaltation). (I am open to instruction on deficiencies in this summary.)

The problem with this conception, though, is that the Protestants who apparently don’t place union correctly in the order of salvation, the Lutherans, those who stress the centrality of justification and the forensic at the expense of the regenerative, have no trouble accounting for suffering. They are, after all, known for the theology of the cross. And Luther, a theologian of the cross, was exceptional in contrasting the theology of the cross with that of glory.

In which case, is union priority better in explaining Christian suffering than justification priority? One way to answer is to look at Calvin’s rather bleak portrait of the Christian life (surely the folks at Focus on the Family wouldn’t call it “golden,” as in The Golden Booklet of the Christian Life, since it would not seem to extol trips to Disneyland) and see how or where he treats union. What follows is one of Calvin’s discourses on the present life that may say as much about Where Waldo Is as it does about neo-Calvinist desires to transform the world and recover paradise. (It’s a two-fer.)

Let the aim of believers in judging mortal life, then, be that while they understand it to be of itself nothing but misery, they may with greater eagerness and dispatch betake themselves wholly to meditate upon that eternal life to come. When it comes to a comparison with the life to come, the present life can not only be safely neglected but, compared to the former, must be utterly despised and loathed. For, if heaven is our homeland, what else is the earth but our place of exile? If departure from the world is entry into life, what else is the world but a sepulcher? And what else is it for us to remain in life but to be immersed in death. . . . Therefore, if the earthly life be compared with the heavenly, it is doubtless to be at once despised and trampled under foot. Of course it is never to be hated except in so far as it holds us subject to sin; although not even hatred of that condition may ever properly be turned against life itself. In any case, it is still fitting for us to be so affected either by weariness or hatred of it that, desiring its end, we may also be prepared to abide in it at the Lord’s pleasure, so that our weariness may be far from all murmuring and impatience. (Institutes, III. ix. 4)

Forensic Friday: Hodge on Romans 5: 1-11

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