D. Common Concerns: Holding Forensic and Actual Righteousness Close Together
D. Common Concerns: Holding Forensic and Actual Righteousness Close Together
Following from the previous point, Newman and Vermigli are also concerned to include the production of actual righteousness in their doctrines of justification. Newman, operating from the conviction that Jesus’ incarnation accomplished more than merely delivering sinners from guilt, emphasizes the sinner’s fellowship and communion with the Divine,873 a relationship that gives way to a tangible form of righteousness, or “actual righteousness.”874
Similarly, Vermigli insists on the connection between forensic and actual righteousness in his doctrine of justification. Before describing God’s activity of forensic imputation in his Romans locus, he pauses to state the following:
It is important to understand that when such an act [of justification] comes from God it is accomplished in two ways. Sometime, in reality, he brings forth righteousness in men. First, he endows them with his own Spirit and renews them fully by restoring the strength of their minds and by retrieving their human faculties from the greater part of their natural corruption; this idea is first a righteousness (iustitia) that is within and clings to our minds by the goodness of God through Christ. Second, when he has fashioned and renewed them in this way he gives right and holy works, and by their frequent and continuing use there is born in our minds a quality or (as they call it) a “habit” by which we are inclined to right and holy living. We do not deny that this type of righteousness is renewed in the hearts of the regenerate.875
To a greater extent than Vermigli, Newman’s doctrine of justification consistently highlights God’s work of sanctification: “The Voice of the Lord is mighty in operation.”876 Concerning the content of this activity, Newman writes, “Imputed righteousness is the coming in of actual righteousness.”877 On account of the dynamic presence of God’s Spirit, such a work transcends the legal domain to include the moral renovation of one’s soul, that is, sanctification.878 Newman regards the separation of sanctification from justification, which, in his view, was so often argued by the Evangelical party of the Church of England, as “technical and unscriptural.”879 This “unreal righteousness,” insists Newman, is an aberration.880
Peter Martyr also desires to hold forensic and actual righteousness together. Accordingly, Martyr upholds regeneration and sanctification as constituent elements of justification. For example, in his 1 Corinthians locus, On Justification, Martyr draws this connection,
A different kind of justification follows this upright life of holiness by which we are clearly praised, approved or declared just. For although good works do not bring that first righteousness which is given freely, yet they point to it and show it is present.881
The upright life of holiness, according to Martyr, is supplemented by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, which restores what is lacking in our “weak and mutilated” works.882 Even though these works ultimately fail to prevail with God, one’s life of holiness nevertheless belongs to the doctrine of justification. Why? A Christian life of holiness serves to vindicate one’s forensic justification, providing material proof that one is indeed regenerate. It is also accepted as pleasing to God and rewarded on the last day.883 Vermigli questions whether one can actually realize eternal salvation without such a living faith.884
With respect to the relationship of forensic and actual righteousness, Newman and Vermigli insist that both of them deserve a place in the doctrine of justification.