Chapter 5: Justification
1. What words are used in Scripture for the concept of “justification,” and what can be derived from this usage for the doctrine to be treated now?
a)The Hebrew term is hitsdiq, hitsdiq, which in by far the most cases means “to declare judicially that someone’s status is in agreement with the demands of justice.” “For I will not justify the godless” (Exod 23:7). “If there is a dispute between men and they come for judgment that the judges decide between them, they shall declare righteous the one who is righteous and condemn the one who is unrighteous” (Deut 25:1). “Those who justify the godless for a gift and deprive the righteous of their righteousness” (Isa 5:23). “He who justifies me is near” (Isa 50:8). The pi‘el forms of the verb can have the same meaning, tseddeq, tseddeq (cf. Jer 3:11; Ezek 16:50–51). That the meaning of the word is strictly judicial and nothing else appears most clearly from Proverbs 17:15: “The one who justifies the godless and the one who condemns the righteous are both indeed an abomination to the LORD.” Were one now to maintain that here “justify” means “to change someone into an upright person by infusing good qualities,” one would then get the result that to make an evil person into a good one is an abomination to God.
When, in a few places, the concept includes more than “to declare just,” these are exceptions to the rule. And even then, the meaning is not simply synonymous with “to make good, holy” but means, rather, “to place in such a condition that a judgment of justification can be pronounced.” That is, it is not the changing of disposition in itself that is designated “to justify,” but rather the changing of disposition with an eye to a judicial pronouncement, whereby that change is taken into consideration and credited. This is the case in Daniel 12:3: “Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who justify many like the stars forever and ever.” Here the term is used of the instrumentality of the ministers of the gospel by which those who hear them come to be in a state of justification, that is, believing, whereupon God can pronounce on them His verdict of justification. Similarly, Isaiah 53:11: “By his knowledge shall my servant, the righteous one, make many righteous, for he shall bear their iniquities.” Here “justify” is certainly more than “declare just.” It means to bring about everything that is necessary to make possible such a declaration of righteousness. The Servant of the Lord does this by His suretyship, and in doing that, He justifies. Usually, however, it is God the Father as judge, who, pronouncing the verdict, justifies; who, taking note of a status of righteousness—whether as one’s own or by imputation—announces the corresponding status.
b)The New Testament word is dikaioun. This also means “to let justice take place by a formal declaration,” “to declare just or righteous.” For example, “the tax collectors justified God” (Luke 7:29)—that is, they acknowledged God to be righteous, as having the right that was due Him. “But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ ” (Luke 10:29). The meaning here is, “to present someone as dikaios [righteous, just].” The passive has the meaning of “to be presented or known as dikaios.” “For by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt 12:37). In extrabiblical Greek dikaioun can mean “to pronounce a just verdict on someone,” both in a good as well as a bad sense: (1) for the evildoer, punishment; (2) for the one who does good, reward. In the New Testament, however, the word is used exclusively for acquittal—thus, in a good sense, never in a bad sense for condemnation to punishment. This is also already the case in the Septuagint.
Dikaioun is a term whose soteriological meaning comes to its full rights in Paul. From Romans 4:5, it is evident that we have to do here with a judicial pronouncement and not with a transforming act. “But to him who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” This is no less evident from the terms that are the antithesis of “justify.” For example, Romans 8:33–34: “It is God who justifies. Who is the one who condemns?” From Romans 4:5, it is also evident that justification does not depend on the condition of the person himself, but on what is imputed to him by grace.
Here, too, a few texts are produced that appear to deviate from this normal usage. These are principally Revelation 22:11, “The one who does wrong, let him still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, let him still be filthy; and the one who is righteous, let him still be justified; and the one who is holy, let him still be sanctified.”1 For “let him still be justified,” the Textus Receptus has dikaiōthētō. Since Bengel it is fairly common to read dikaiosynēn poiēsatō eti, “let him do more righteousness” (so, too, Wescott and Hort). Here, then, justification is not spoken of as a transforming action by which a person gradually makes himself more and more righteous, but of the exercise of righteousness in life.
First Corinthians 6:11 is also a passage to which appeal is made to prove the ethical meaning of dikaioun. There we read, “Such were some of you; but you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” It is said that here justification is presented as occurring through the Spirit of God, and from this it should then be evident how “justify” is synonymous with “sanctify.” But that here, too, that justification cannot simply be equivalent to “sanctify” is apparent from the fact that this concept immediately precedes, and the apostle cannot have wanted to say the same thing twice. Nor does the fact that the Spirit justifies prove anything, for besides the fact that He is certainly the creator of justifying faith and the one who applies justification to the conscience, one need not have “by the Spirit of our God” refer to justification. It can refer exclusively to “you are washed, you are sanctified.” The apostle apparently alludes in this text to baptism, in which justification is signified and sealed “in the name of Christ.”
A third passage appealed to is Titus 3:5–7: “He has saved us, not because of works of righteousness that we had done but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he has poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we, being justified by his grace, might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” It is said that here the rich outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which effects regeneration and renewal, is presented as the cause of justification because “so that” is in the text. We respond: Here, “so that” ought not to be connected with “poured out,” but with the preceding, “he has saved us.” And furthermore, the clause does not have in view “being justified,” but reads, “so that after having been justified [that is, after having received the right of inheritance], we [actually] would become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
2. What is the specific meaning of the adjective dikaios contained in the verb dikaioun?
Dikaios never expresses what a thing is in itself but what it is in relation to something else, a norm that is outside it and to which it ought to correspond. It is thereby distinguished from agathos, “good.” It can, for example, be connected with concepts like “wagon, horse, ox,” etc., and means then that these things correspond to the demands that one has for their usage, while to say that they are “good” is something completely different—namely, that they correspond to their ideal. Man, then, is “righteous” if in his entire life he is as his judicial relationship to God requires of him, and consequently is pronounced righteous by the judgment of God. That someone acts righteously or is righteous can include the concept of being good or doing good, but that is always included in terms of a certain aspect—namely, that of a judicial relationship to God.
3. Does the word “justification” itself also occur in Scripture?
Yes, dikaiōsis occurs with this meaning in Romans 4:25, “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Likewise, Romans 5:18: “So also through one act of righteousness grace comes upon all men for justification of life.”
4. What is the meaning of the Latin word justificare?
As its derivation already shows, this word means justum facere, “to make someone a righteous person.” Now, one could say that this always entails a change in the person, because a “making” is spoken of. For this reason, some have objected to the translation “to make righteous” and wished for it to be avoided, and that instead “justification” and “justify” be used. This, however, is without grounds. The meaning of the word facere is just as general as “make” [in Dutch and English]. We speak of “making someone a king,” “making money,” making mention,” etc. In each particular case, “to make” has a meaning that corresponds to that particular case. Where one has to do with a relationship, “make” does not mean to change the thing itself inwardly, but to create this relationship by a declaration. To make someone king does not at all mean to furnish him with the particular qualities that a king should have, but simply to declare him to be king, to create between him and his subjects a relationship that is called kingly rule. To make righteous is to be understood similarly, and in terms of this point of view may be defended fully. It is to effect, to create, to make the relationship of righteousness. This can occur (1) by taking the subjective condition of someone into consideration and making it the basis of a justifying judgment; or (2) by transferring to him the objective relationship of righteousness from someone else.
Previously it has been demonstrated how it is precisely in this objective character of righteousness or justness that the possibility of imputation has its basis. One can “sanctify” someone, at least in an ethical sense, only by changing him subjectively. Holiness cannot be transferred because it is something resident in a person. Righteousness, in contrast, may indeed be transferred, because it is something that exists between that person and another, something in which he stands.
5. To what does justification have reference: to the judicial state or to the condition of man?
To the former. When someone is justified, his condition is not thereby changed. A change may precede or follow, because God has set it in an inseparable relationship with justification. But justification itself never consists in that change. Thus, on this point, justification is utterly distinct from regeneration and sanctification. In order to grasp this difference well, it is necessary that one clearly present the two relationships to God in which man stands.
First, there is a relationship of similarity to God, consisting in this: Man is God’s image-bearer; more specifically, he possesses the image of God in the narrower sense, is holy, completely good. Second, there is a relationship of subordination to God, consisting in this: Man has obligations toward God, owes Him something; his entire moral condition is seen as being subject to the claim of God. Regeneration and sanctification belong to the first sphere, and justification to the second.
Now, it is true that our moral goodness and our righteousness can be in the closest relationship, that someone good and holy is righteous per se. But still one must be careful to note that righteousness only stems from moral goodness by means of a judgment of God. One’s condition taken into account by the judge yields that person’s judicial state. Pollution becomes guilt because it passes through the judgment of God. If Adam had remained unfallen and kept the probation command, then God would have justified him—that is, God would have taken into account Adam’s holy and steadfast condition and would have had a state of immutable righteousness follow. Conversely, when Adam sinned, it was the condemnation of God that followed on the heels of this sin that transferred him from a state of rectitude into a state of damnation.
6. How, consequently, can you describe justification?
It is a judicial assigning to the sinner of the status of righteousness on the basis of the merits of Christ, imputed to him by God, and in which, in faith, he places his trust.
7. Indicate the points by which this justification is distinguished from sanctification.
a)Sanctification serves to take away the pollution of sin and to replace it with what is good as an inherent disposition; it restores in us conformity to the image of God. Justification serves to take away the guilt of sin and to replace it with the right to eternal life in relationship with God.
The usual description—sanctification takes away the pollution of sin, justification the guilt of sin—is not incorrect but still incomplete, because only half of the matter is taken into consideration. In both, in sanctification and justification, there is a second half—namely, what is positive. To take away evil does not yet say what good is given in its place. Likewise, to abolish guilt does not yet mean to grant full rights.
b)Sanctification takes place within us, justification outside relative to us. The former is an action that changes one’s being; it must therefore intervene within our being and bring about a subjective change. The latter is a declaration that changes one’s status, a judicial word, and therefore does not affect our being but our standing; it does not take place within us but before God in His tribunal.
c)Sanctification, which begins with regeneration, has to do in the first place with the unconscious part of man. It changes, though not only but still first of all, his heart, his disposition, and from there moves to his thoughts, words, and work. Justification, which takes place in the tribunal of God, is intended to address the consciousness of man. Take note! We are not saying that justification takes place in our consciousness, although that may be said of justification in the widest sense. We are only saying that justification in the tribunal of God is intended to be perceived by the consciousness of man. That already follows from its character as a declaration. An act without a word can be applicable to unconscious life, but an act in a word, an existing verdict, must find its significance in the consciousness. Justification is thus intended to be introduced into the consciousness of man, to be brought to understanding in him.
d)Sanctification is a slow process that is never entirely completed in this life; justification, in contrast, occurs once and is complete. The former can regress; the latter cannot. Once declared, justification remains secure forever.
e)Sanctification and justification differ in their cause. The meriting cause is the same for both, namely, the merits of Christ. But the difference is to be found in the effecting cause. While God the Father as judge declares the verdict of justification in the divine tribunal, it is God the Holy Spirit, as our sanctifier, who works subjective holiness in us.
8. Who loses sight of the difference between regeneration-sanctification on the one hand and justification on the other?
Roman Catholics. Under justification they do not understand an actus forensis, a judicial act, but an actus physicus, a physical act, better still an actus hyperphysicus, a supernatural act. Now, one could think that this is merely a verbal difference and that it does not matter whether the one word or the other is used, if one simply means the same thing, and that Rome does not need to be in error materially when it designates sanctification with the term justification. When we look closer, however, it is soon clear that this formal difference is caused by a deeper material difference. One should note the following points:
a)Although the Roman Catholic church does not deny that there is an imputation of the merits of the Mediator, it nonetheless makes this imputation something subordinate, pushes it completely into the background, and makes the subjective change of man the be-all and end-all. Rome does not deny that all grace comes to us on the basis of the merits of Christ. The Council of Trent teaches: “Although no one can be righteous unless the merits of the suffering of Christ are communicated to him, still this takes place in this justification of the ungodly so that by the merits of the most holy suffering of the same, the love of God is poured out by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those who are justified, so that it inheres there,” etc. And again: “The meritorious cause [of justification] is His dearly beloved Only Begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies … earned justification for us by His most holy suffering on the wood of the cross,” etc.2 But all that is merely preparatory. It is the basis and the starting point, according to Rome, not the substance of the matter. It takes place outside of individuals and is really vested in the church. What happens to the individual himself is that he is made subjectively righteous and holy by the sacrament. If one now takes into consideration that, according to Scripture, the justification of man before God is the principal part of the order of salvation, really the cardinal point about which everything turns and on which everything is focused, then the use of this term for something else acquires an extremely dangerous meaning. Indeed, the importance and the weight of the matter, which adhere to this term, are transferred with the term to this totally different meaning. Thus, what, superficially considered, could appear to be a mere change of name is in fact a shift in principle of the center of gravity of religion, a total falsification of the relationship between God and man. For Rome assigns all the weight that Scripture attributes to forensic justification to physical justification. If in the former it is the grace of God—the free imputation of the merits of the Mediator—that shines, for Rome, man—the inner condition of man, what he is and does—comes to the fore.
It is not otherwise with the concept of faith. This, too, as we saw, has a central significance in Scripture. Faith is precisely what it is so that God’s glory in the sinner might come into its own. Therefore, faith precedes justification logically; we are justified in and by faith. But Rome splits faith in two, speaks of a fides informis and of a fides formata, an unformed and a formed faith. The former, consisting of bare historical assent, precedes justification; the latter, as far as its seed is concerned, consisting in love as the root of all virtues, is given in justification itself. “In the justification mentioned, man receives through Jesus Christ, in whom he is engrafted … faith, hope, and love.” And, “we are therefore said to be justified by faith, because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation and the root of all justification.” Thus, there is transferred to faith as a good, ethical property of man what Scripture says of faith as a trusting acknowledgment of the soul that salvation is wholly in Christ.
b)Catholics deny in principle the imputation of the active obedience of the Mediator in justification. It is on the basis of the suffering of the Savior that new qualities are infused into us, and by exercising these new qualities and putting them into operation we must merit eternal life for ourselves. Thus only in a very indirect sense can one say on the basis of the Roman Catholic standpoint that the merits of Christ are the foundation for obtaining eternal life. They are that foundation insofar as they have made it possible for the sinner himself to receive the necessary means to merit eternal life himself. Here, too, Christ is therefore more a means and a preparation for our justification than its foundation, its real meritorious cause. The work is divided between God and man. The former does the negative, the latter the positive half. The covenant of grace serves merely to restore the covenant of works.
c)In connection with this, the Roman church teaches that there is a decrease and increase of justification, that one must progress from virtue to virtue, that only the works that one does bring justification to perfection. As faith, love, and hope multiply, so justification also increases. One can fall from justification and then must receive it again by the sacrament of penance. It is lost not only when faith ceases but also by each mortal sin that is committed. From that, then, it follows further that there is no absolute assurance of justification and that in the Roman Church one always continues to be in an uncertain, wavering condition.
9. What propositions must be set in opposition to this Roman Catholic teaching?
a)In what Scripture calls “justification” nothing is changed with respect to our subjective condition. In justification we appear as sinners. It is a justificatio status externus; only our external status is exchanged; our status internus, our internal state, is not changed. The Apostle Paul teaches this expressly when he says (Rom 4:5), “But to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” This follows as well from the objection that Paul’s Jewish opponents again and again raised against Paul’s teaching on justification. They said, “According to your scheme, justification is something that takes place entirely outside a person; subjectively, someone can be the greatest sinner and still be completely righteous before God.” To that objection Paul never answered, “My righteousness is at the same time a subjective change and a re-creation of man.” But he always answered, “Regeneration and sanctification are always joined with my justification as something distinct from it and as a fruit of it.” That is the reasoning that is used by the apostle in Romans 6. According to Rome, he should have reasoned in a completely different manner.
b)Not only the works that we do in our own strength, or that we do before regeneration, or that we do without the merits of Christ, but all works, of whatever sort, are excluded from justification. This is so repetitively certain in Scripture that proof is almost superfluous. Galatians 2:16 reads, “… nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by law-works [ex ergōn nomou].” In no way is the reference here to works prescribed by one or another specific law, because the article is missing. All law-work as such is excluded from justification. According to Paul, faith and works form an absolute contrast in the matter of justification (Rom 11:6). This must be maintained against the Roman Catholic teaching about the instrumentality of works in justification, as well as against Pelagians, Rationalists, and Remonstrants. The first two mentioned, the Pelagians and Rationalists, maintain that Scripture excludes only the works of the Jewish law, that is, the ceremonial law, but that the moral law certainly has to be observed by us for justification. The last, the Remonstrants, go one step further, and in place of the moral law in all its severity put a lighter form, the law of the obedience of faith. They speak of a fides obsequiosa [submissive faith] and of an obedientia evangelica [evangelical obedience], which, while in itself not perfect, is accepted by God as perfect.
c)Justification is not in the first place designed to save man and make him better, but to reveal the free grace of God in which His glory is displayed. According to us, justification is also meant to exalt God’s honor. And since in the covenant of grace the honor of God consists in the fact that He Himself alone is at work, this must also emerge in the case of justification. Hence Paul teaches how, in justification, all boasting on man’s side is excluded (Rom 3:27). But with Rome that does not come out in an absolute way. Man himself is a coworker; the work of God remains limited to eliminating obstacles and to providing means for man’s working. That reverses the right relationship. We say: The judicial aspect, in which the honor of God as the sole source of salvation shines so powerfully, precedes. Rome says: The ethical aspect, which is directed to man and achieves something in man, precedes, and then from man, thus restored, the judicial aspect proceeds.
10. Show that justification takes place in the tribunal of God (in foro divino).
This is apparent from the expressions used by Scripture—for example, “before God [para tō theō]” (Gal 3:11), “in his sight [enōpion autou]” (Rom 3:20). Both of these expressions include a standing before God as before the judge who sits on His throne, a standing before His face.
11. What takes place in this divine tribunal when a man is justified?
In order to understand this well, the less-accurate answers must first be rejected.
a)Some say: In His eternal decree or in the eternal counsel of peace, God determines that the sinner who is elect will be regarded and dealt with in the Surety. This is eternal justification, taught by many theologians, such as Voetius, Comrie, Holtzius, and, presently, Dr. Abraham Kuyper. Justification is thus the determination of God that the judicial status of the sinner will be separate from his own personal condition, and will be determined by the merits of the Mediator. One usually reasons for this on two grounds:
1.Everything that occurs in man subjectively must have its objective basis antecedently in the merits of Christ, imputed to him personally. Now, it is undeniable that when a person is regenerated, he already received this gift of God as the fruit of the imputed merits of Christ—indeed, going back still further, that the workings of preparatory grace have also been given to him, because the merits of Christ have been imputed to him personally. In fact, God’s dealings with him from the beginning of his life on and even in his ancestors have been determined by divine deliberation. He has been included in the Surety from eternity. Thus one cannot say anything other than that the justification of the sinner has its origin in eternity.
2.The second ground on which one reasons is that justification is not an inward act in man—that is, not an act that occurs within man and hence transpires in time. It takes place in the divine tribunal, within the being of God, and does not take place outside of His being. Therefore, it is of itself eternal, for everything that occurs within God’s being is elevated above time.
It may not be denied that Reformed doctrine, by seeking to find the certainty of all things in God and requiring a foundation for all that is temporal in eternity, teaches such a view of justification much more easily than other systems. The Lutherans have always reproached the Reformed that their doctrine of election must lead to this conclusion. If it is determined from eternity and absolutely for whom the merits of the Mediator are reckoned and to whom they will be applied in time, then the actual imputation, the establishing of a bond between the believer and Christ, has already been realized in eternity and there is no longer a need to establish this bond in time. Conversely, one might say that only the doctrine of universal satisfaction escapes this conclusion. Then Christ has died in general for all sinners, and now it must be determined in time, by faith, which specific persons His merits will benefit. Thus we see the need for a temporal justification.
There are preponderant objections against the doctrine that justification is from eternity:
1.Everywhere in Scripture it is taught that justification is through and by faith. It cannot, therefore, precede faith. Although faith is not the meriting or the effecting cause of justification, these two surely stand in a certain inseparable connection. As certainly as faith is something that originates in time, so certainly does the justification of the sinner before God, which is tied to faith, occur in time.
2.In Romans 8:30, where the steps in the order of salvation are enumerated, justification comes between two temporal acts of God, namely, between calling and glorification. And these three things stand together as consequences of a pair of other acts, which are distinguished as eternal from what is temporal. At the same time, in verse 29, the specification is expressly added for the foreknowledge and predestination of God that they took place beforehand, that is, before time. That is not the case with justification.
3.To affirm justification from eternity can lead to approximately the same results as the Roman Catholic error in this area of Christian doctrine. What does Rome do? As has been seen, they take the term “justification” and apply it to something entirely different, something that is true in part but still is never called justification by Scripture. However, with the name they also transfer many characteristics of justification to this other entity. As a result, what remains for them of true justification is without sharp and vital features. The imputation of the merits of Christ remains in the dark for them. The same thing can happen with us if we teach eternal justification. No one will deny that in fact there is something like Comrie and others speak of when they speak of an eternal imputation of the merits of Christ. But Scripture does not call this justification. Now, one could think, as with Rome, that we have to do here merely with a faulty designation that amounts to a verbal difference. But that is not the case. Temporal justification, as Scripture teaches it, has certain traits and particularities that are inseparable from its temporal nature. Thus, whoever applies the word “justification” to an eternal act of God will not be able to do it justice. And at the same time, what he would then still believe about the temporal justification of the sinner would be much less clear and defined in his view than it should be according to Scripture. The teaching of eternal justification, therefore, even has serious objections practically. It will lead people to transpose their life of faith back into eternity and to turn away from the display of God’s favor at this present time. It will remove justification from being in opposition to the consciousness of sin, for if in this manner the sinner viewed himself as justified from eternity, then it is not possible that he view his ideal personality in God’s counsel with the same conviction of sin and lostness as his real personality in time.
4.As far as the second of the grounds, on which the defenders of eternal justification reason, is concerned—namely, that all acts of God, which are in God, must be eternal—this ground is thoroughly deficient. If in this way one infers the eternity of justification, then one must also infer the eternity of condemnation, for this too is a judgment of God about man, not an act that occurs in man. In the same way, creation as an act in God is eternal. But all these acts, although not transpiring for God in the form of time, are nonetheless eternal in a somewhat different sense than God’s decree is eternal. They terminate in time. God’s eternal act of creation does not give us an eternal creation as its product. Neither does eternal justification, if by that one only means that the judgment of God does not transpire in the form of time. By paying close attention to this distinction, all the conclusions fall away that the defenders of eternal justification wish to derive from this eternity of God’s acts. So some say, for example, even when a sinner does not yet believe and still lives in the world alienated, he is already the object of God’s good pleasure, for he is justified from eternity. We answer: In this sense, he is just as well condemned from eternity. But in both cases the use of the word “eternity” is misleading. That God’s acts lie above the form of time does not eliminate the fact that in their relationship to us they appear in temporal sequence and are to be viewed as such by us. That is why Scripture teaches that both condemnation and justification are temporal acts for us, and that the former always precedes the latter. Paul declares to the Ephesians not that before their calling they were already the objects of God’s good pleasure, but that they were children of wrath like the others (Eph 2:3). If someone believes in the Son, wrath is removed from him, but if he disobeys the Son, the wrath of God remains on him [cf. John 3:36].
5.Finally, concerning the first ground—namely, that the merits of Christ have already been imputed to the sinner before he believes, since on that basis, workings of grace take place within him—this too is deficient. The concept of imputation does not always have the same meaning. (a) In election, imputation was the determination that Christ would be the surety for believers. (b) In the counsel of peace, imputation was the agreement that the Mediator would pay for all the guilt of the elect. By this imputation, their salvation was made firm and certain. It was not a conditional suretyship but an absolute one. And on the basis of this absolute suretyship, the elect can receive regeneration, conversion, and faith. All this, however, was determined with the provision that the judicial relationship of God to them would not be changed personally until they believed. In a gracious arrangement, as the establishing of the Mediator as surety was, the creditor has every right himself to determine when the consequences of the agreement will become effective. (c) In time there is the personal, judicial imputation for believers that is only called justification in Scripture.
b)There are others who do not place justification in eternity, but find it in the satisfaction of Christ. Thereby the just demands of God were satisfied, and where there is satisfaction of demands, the claim eo ipso [of itself] disappears. Some say that this then is conclusive, since in God’s plan Christ suffered for the elect, and thus—in the suffering that struck Him and in the obedience that He supplied—God with full consciousness received and obtained the justice due Him from the elect, and thereby at the same time declared that they were just before Him.
This view, too, must be rejected for the following reasons:
1.Earlier we have seen that a pecuniary debt and a punitive debt are to be distinguished precisely by the fact that payment of the former by a surety ipso facto [in itself] releases the original debtor, while for the latter such is not the case.
2.If justification has taken place in the satisfaction, or more precisely, in the resurrection of Christ, then it was incomplete for Old Testament believers. They were not really justified then. This cannot be. There is, therefore, a complete justification that is not present in the resurrection.
3.It is certainly true that the resurrection of the Mediator is a factual declaration of God that He had fulfilled all righteousness, and there is no objection to calling this the collective justification of the body of Christ. But it was not personal justification. Romans 4:25, “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification,” is to be understood as follows: Christ was raised so that later, when we are justified, it would be even more certain for us that a complete satisfaction had been accomplished.
c)A third view is that justification takes place when God begins to treat the sinner with effectual grace. It would then be not so much a verbal declaration as a change in procedure that is expressed through actions. Formerly, God treated a sinner without workings of grace; then there comes a point where He works in him regeneration, repentance, and faith. This transition is justification.
Against this view must be noted:
1.Scripture always seeks justification in a judicial pronouncement and not in a change of treatment.
2.The change of treatment begins beneath the consciousness, while justification is an act intended for the consciousness of the sinner.
3.Justification follows faith logically and so cannot precede faith.
4.A ground adduced for this view is that justification always has one who is ungodly as its object. Now, if a person is not justified before he exercises faith and is regenerate, then he is no longer a suitable object for this justification of the ungodly. That is why some will have Scripture teach “justified to faith” instead of by and through faith. But, to begin with, Scripture never says “to faith.” Further, the objection just mentioned also disappears if one only takes into consideration that faith within man is not the basis of merit on which man is declared just. In justification, God declares to the believing sinner that he in his capacity as entirely without rights is nevertheless endowed with all rights. Faith and regenerate life are thus certainly present but are not taken into consideration in the judgment—for which, moreover, they, imperfect and stained by sin, would also in no way be adequate.
d)The correct conception is this: As soon as the sinner exercises saving faith, God absolves him personally in the heavenly tribunal, and He declares that now He will no longer be seen by anyone in the world, not even by the sinner himself, as being wrathful against him, or as expecting from him the fulfilling of any demand for obtaining eternal life, but rather as gracious and as giving him assurance of eternal life, and all this on the basis of the merits of Christ as the only meriting cause. This declaration of God in His tribunal, intended for the believer personally, is justification proper, and it is evidently distinguished specifically from everything that has preceded. It can occur only now, since only by faith is the possibility of an antinomian misuse of grace cut off. God can indeed deal with the sinner in his unconscious life favorably—for example, grant him regeneration before he exercises faith—but His intention is not to say to the sinner in His tribunal, “You are righteous in Christ and I no longer consider you as a sinner,” before faith began to function in him. Before that time, God addresses the sinner as an angry judge. Thus, one must sharply distinguish these two: (a) the treatment of the sinner from the side of God by actions; (b) the treatment of the sinner from the side of God by a judicial declaration that is intended to be announced to the consciousness of the sinner. The former begins much earlier than when faith is present. The latter does not begin before faith is present, and in it we have to seek justification proper.
12. In what, explained in more detail, does this justification consist?
To begin with, it is to be distinguished into (1) active justification (justificatio activa) and (2) passive justification (justificatio passiva).
Active justification occurs in the divine tribunal. It is the declaration as God makes it. Passive justification, in contrast, is the application and announcement, or rather the carrying through, of this verdict in the conscience of the believer, in the tribunal of the conscience (in foro conscientiae). Further, as far as active justification is concerned, the following should be noted:
a)The declaration of God that we are righteous does not consist merely in the forgiveness of sins. The expression “forgiveness of sins” can even be used in a way that excludes it entirely from justification. Sometimes it is understood as overlooking sin, simply not taking account of it. God, however, cannot exercise such forgiveness because of His righteousness. There must be a ground on which acquittal from guilt—forgiveness—rests. That ground is to be found in the merits of Christ, and more specifically in His passive obedience. Therefore, when God justifies the sinner, He declares that, viewed on the basis of those merits, He will no longer be reckoning his sins to him. In other words, God makes an open declaration that the merits of the Mediator are imputed to the believer personally. There is thus a transfer of merits. Just as in the suretyship of the Mediator there was a transfer of obligations from the elect to the Surety, just as in the satisfaction of Christ there is a transfer of the punishments and demands in the same direction, so, now, in justification there is a transfer of merits in the other direction.
b)In justification, God appears in a twofold respect: first, as a righteous judge, who takes account of guilt and must take account of it; then, as a gracious God, who does not insist that guilt be charged personally to that person who contracted it. Insofar as the first is the case, justification that takes place under the covenant of grace is no different than justification under the covenant of works. The old theologians expressed this by saying that gospel justification did not differ from legal justification quoad essentiam, “as to essence,” but quoad circumstantias, “as to circumstances.” If one considers the activity of God insofar as it takes place with a view to Christ and takes into account His merits, then we have justification in the strict sense of the word. That God justifies the sinner freely never means that God permits the violation of justice. No sinner who has arrived at a proper insight into God’s justice would have anything to do with such a justification. If, on the other hand, one considers the action of God with a view to the sinner himself, then it is pure grace. One who is ungodly is declared righteous. Thus, what on the one hand is the fullest justice appears on the other hand almost as a paradox. But both are true.
c)The effective cause (causa efficiens) of justification is God, more accurately God the Father, and still more accurately His grace and righteousness. The meritorious cause is the obedience of Christ the Mediator (causa meritoria). The instrumental cause (causa instrumentalis) is faith worked in the heart through the Holy Spirit and then put into action. The final cause (causa finalis) is the glorification of God regarding all His virtues related to justification.
d)Justification, both as active and as passive, has two parts that correspond to the two aspects of the satisfaction of Christ. Passive obedience is the basis for remission from punishment due to guilt; active obedience is the basis for attributing the right to eternal life.
There is some difficulty in finding suitable terms for these two aspects of justification. The first aspect is generally called forgiveness of sins, the second adoption as children. This is possible only as one keeps in view that both rest on one act of imputation that also belongs to justification. Not simply forgiveness, but forgiveness on the basis of imputation. So, too, for adoption.
When Calvin and others among the old theologians sometimes have justification amount to the forgiveness of sins (remissio peccatorum), then one must keep the following in view as the explanation of this phenomenon. First of all, in their opposition to Rome, that aspect of the doctrine that the Catholic church misunderstood had to be given prominence. That was not the aspect of justification in the strict sense, but, quite to the contrary, the aspect of grace and forgiveness. Furthermore, this description agreed with the Old Testament phraseology, which very often speaks of justification as a blotting out of sins, a forgiving of sins, a no longer remembering of sins, a carrying away of sins, etc.—all of these expressions in which the second aspect is not mentioned. In general, in the Old Testament the second aspect of justification remained more obscure. There was, certainly, an assurance of eternal life, but this occurred through the typical promise of a blessed temporal life, and only by degrees came to greater clarity (cf. Psa 51:4; Jer 31:34; Psa 32:1; Isa 43:25; 44:22; Zech 13:1). This does not mean that the believers in the Old Testament did not have a complete justification, as the followers of Cocceius maintain, who on the grounds of Romans 3:25 ascribe to them only a paresis [passing over] and not an aphesis [remission of sin]. This certainty of satisfaction was completely guaranteed by the immutability of the divine Surety, and so in no way did justification need to wait for the accomplishment of the work of redemption. The difference was gradual—a difference in clarity, not a difference in principle, as the distinction just mentioned between “passing over” and “forgiving” would have it.
Neither is it entirely right when our [Belgic] Confession of Faith, in the heading to Article 23, seeks justification in the forgiveness of sins plus the imputation of the merits of Christ. These two cannot be coordinated in this way. Rather, the merits of the Mediator are the basis of forgiveness plus adoption as children. In this article, however, no mention is made of the latter.
13. Do all agree that justification rests not only on the passive but also on the active obedience of the Mediator?
No. Besides the view just mentioned, which places less emphasis on this aspect, there is also a systematic denial of this element. Naturally, all those who deny active obedience as a part of Christ’s satisfaction must also deny its application to the sinner, and so develop a one-sided, incomplete doctrine of justification. This happens in Piscator and in all theologians who have followed him. It is not necessary here to repeat the arguments that have been raised against this misconception in discussing the doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction. With necessary changes made, they can all be used here. The principal issue comes down to this: that one does not distinguish properly between negative not-being-unrighteous and positive being-righteous in the sense of having the right to eternal life. If God forgives someone his sins, he is not yet thereby automatically placed in the position of someone entitled to eternal life. Between the two extremes of someone guilty and condemned and someone fully justified, a third state can very well be imagined. God could have forgiven people, namely their guilt, because of the merits of Christ, and then further could have entered into a new covenant relationship with them in order to let them earn eternal life for themselves. But then they would not have been justified as believers are now justified. Justification is not merely the act of God whereby He puts the sinner in a position to open a new page in his life’s book, which for the time being would still be blank, and on which he himself would still have to inscribe new merits. All the pages are opened by God at one time; on all pages, the handwriting of sin against him is wiped out [cf. Col 2:14], and in its place the promise of eternal life is written.
14. Can you show that in justification a granting of the right to eternal life in fact takes place?
Yes. In Galatians 3:13–14, these two things are clearly placed next to each other: (a) being redeemed from the curse of the law that has occurred because Christ became a curse for us; (b) the coming-upon us of the blessing of Abraham. That the latter cannot be located merely negatively in the redemption from the curse is clear from Galatians 3:11–12, where it is described as a fruit of justifying faith that the person lives by it, and this life of faith is set in opposition to living by the works of the law. See also Galatians 3:5, where “the Spirit” as the principle of eternal life is presented as the gift of righteousness that follows faith. Again, in Galatians 3:21, that the law would make alive and that righteousness would be by the law are juxtaposed as synonymous.
In Acts 26:18, both aspects of justification are placed next to each other in just so many words: “in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me [Christ]” (cf. also Zech 3:4–5; Isa 61:10). No less weighty is the declaration of the apostle in Romans 5:18–19, where of justification it is said: “by one act of righteousness grace comes on all men for justification of life,” and “by the obedience of one many will be made righteous.”
15. Do those who think like Piscator deny this and other truths of Scripture?
No. They maintain only that all this is to be seen as a fruit not of the active obedience of the Mediator but exclusively of His passive obedience. By covering sin, Christ has obtained life. One simply does not intend to think of a middle state. From this, it is clear that one must make a distinction between the worse thinking of the Roman Catholics, the Remonstrants, et al., on the one hand, and this one-sided thinking of Piscator on the other. The latter was in principle more a misconception than a heresy. For the others, the error derives from a deeper, heretical principle.
16. How should we explain it when now and then Scripture also presents the positive blessing of justification and the gift of eternal life as a fruit of the death or the blood of Christ?
This should be taken synecdochically—that is, so that the one part is included in the other. We have noted earlier that the two aspects of the obedience of the Mediator may be distinguished but not separated from each other. The one is repeatedly contained in the other. His obedience is precisely that obedience by which He gave Himself over to death (Phil 2:8). And since the passive obedience was the indispensable condition for the validity of the active obedience, as a part it can designate the whole. This occurs, for example, in Romans 5:9, “being justified by His blood,” and in Romans 3:25, “as a propitiation by faith in His blood, for a demonstration of His righteousness.”
17. What should be noted concerning the second part of justification, “adoption as children”?
a)That it occurs in a forensic, judicial sense, as is required by the nature of justification. One should above all distinguish this adoption as a judicial act from the ethical act of God by which He restores to sinners, who were His enemies and fought against Him, the attitude of a child and the likeness of a child to its father. Of course, in this ethical significance the doctrine of adoption does not belong to justification but to regeneration, conversion, and sanctification. It stands to reason that this judicial adoption and ethical adoption cannot exist totally separated from each other. In Galatians 3:26–27, both meanings occur in the immediate context next to each other. First, children by faith in Christ Jesus (= forensic sense), then actually having put on Christ, thus having become one body with Him and possessing the Spirit of the Son who cries, “Abba, Father” (cf. also Gal 4:6). But the distinctive factor is that in Paul, adoption as children always appears as a legal concept and, as such, is continually the basis of the subjective ethical sense of adoption. Paul calls it huiothesia, literally “a placing as children,” from huios and tithenai. In classical legal language, this was a sharply delineated concept, and never meant to bestow on someone the characteristics of a child subjectively but always to place someone objectively in the status of a child, just as one still today adopts a child as his own. The concept occurs with the same legal meaning in John 1:12: “To as many as have received Him, He has given the right to become children of God, namely, those who believe in His name.” Here it reads exousian edōken, “He gave legal authority,” although directly following that, allusion is made to regeneration again as the second cause of adoption. Otherwise, adoption is generally considered ethically in John. For this reason also the word used is not huios but teknon, which points more to origin (tiktein, “to beget, to give birth”) than to a legal relationship (cf. 1 John 3:9–10). This adoption, as is evident from this passage, is related more to sanctification than to justification.
b)If we now ask further what this judicial adoption includes, then the following should be noted:
1.It implies that, on account of the suretyship provided by the Mediator, believers are discharged from all obligations to satisfy God’s justice. The son must still serve the Father and obey His laws, but he does it out of love and no longer has need to do that in order to earn something. Believers are thus under the law as a rule of life, but no longer under the law as a means of justification. As far as their persons are concerned, they receive all the riches of the Father without having to do something for them. It is a free gift. Under the curse of the law they were slaves; now they are sons (Gal 4:7).
2.The son nevertheless has rights—namely, the right to inherit the treasures of the Father. This right of inheritance is conveyed in justification. Believers are coheirs with Christ and heirs of God (Rom 8:17). This inheritance includes all the subjective benefits of salvation. Reckoned to them in Galatians 3:14 is “the promise of the Spirit”; in 4:6, “the Spirit of the Son, who cries, ‘Abba, Father!’ ” But not only present but also future gifts belong to these subjective benefits. In Romans 8:17–18, the glory that the coheirs with Christ receive comes only after the oppression of the present time. In Romans 8:23, the redemption of the body, directly called the “adoption as children,” belongs to that future glorification. According to Romans 8:30, glorification is connected directly to justification as a link in the chain of salvation; it is the consequent fruit of justification. From all this, it is clear that in his justification a person receives a legal entitlement from God to all the benefits of the covenant of grace, temporal and eternal, bodily and spiritual. Justification is not the imparting of those benefits, but the granting of the right to them.
18. Is justification an act that takes place once and for all, or an act that can be repeated?
a)The Roman Catholic church makes a distinction between a first and a second justification. The first consists in the infusion of habitual grace, by which original sin is suppressed and expelled (see above). The formal cause of the second justification is to be sought in good works that man himself performs. This is a confusion of sanctification and justification, and makes the fruits of the former meritorious. As justification becomes sanctification, so sanctification again becomes justification in the hands of Rome—naturally, a legalistic justification.
b)Also among those who hold to a sound doctrine of justification, a difference of opinion is prevalent concerning the question whether justification can be repeated. Some think that justification repeatedly follows each confession of sin, and so explain this repeated justification with respect to what is said about the forgiveness of the sins of believers. Others—and they are the majority of the Reformed theologians—hold that justification is an actus individuus et simul totus, that is, an indivisible act that occurs only once. This latter view is certainly the only tenable one, and for the following reasons:
1.Scripture itself nowhere says that the judicial act of God, which it calls justification, would be capable of repetition. Rather, it always presents justification as occurring at one point in time. As there is one predestination, one calling, one glorification, so there is also only one justification, and this stands between the other acts of the order of salvation (Rom 8:30), of which it is certain and generally agreed that they occur but once.
2.The idea of sonship implies that we cannot lose the state of justification once we have obtained it. A son can certainly sin and transgress against his father, but he does not therefore cease to be a son. By adoption as children, the legal position of believers in relation to God is loosed once for all from their own doing and working. Note: not their moral position but their legal position. A believer remains under the moral law, and for him every transgression of it is sin, which must be confessed. But his status before God is no longer determined by those things.
3.If justification must be constantly repeated, then it is not clear how a sinner could ever come to be in a state of being justified. In each fraction of a second a new sin is committed; there is never a sinless moment in the life of believers. They are therefore, according to this view, repeatedly outside of justification and never within it. Their life is a matter of constantly becoming justified and never being justified. This differs considerably from the situation of one justified as that is portrayed for us by Scripture in Romans 5:1 and 8:33–34.
4.It will naturally not do to say that one does not need a new justification for all sins committed after the first justification, but only for those that occur in the consciousness and so are confessed. The consciousness of sin can never be made such a basis for distinguishing. One could with as much right maintain that in the so-called first justification all those sins were forgiven that appear in the consciousness.
5.One might say that it is an absurd idea that future sins, which are not yet committed, would be forgiven. But this idea contains nothing absurd if one only considers that for the Judge who pronounces forgiveness, the record of sins, their guilt, does not lie hidden in the darkness of the future but in the full light of His divine omniscience. Furthermore, it cannot be more absurd to forgive sins in advance than to atone for sins in advance. The latter has taken place in Christ. He bore millions of sins that were not yet perpetrated and for which the perpetrators were not yet in existence. This is possible because for God’s eternal view all that, too, was present.
6.The testimony of Scripture is that all our sins are forgiven by the imputation of the merits of Christ (Col 2:13), that nothing more can be charged against the elect of God (John 5:24; Rom 8:33–34; cf. also 5:1, according to which there is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus). The same thing holds for the second aspect of justification. Not a part of the rights is granted to us, but at once in their entirety. In Ephesians 1:3, it is said that we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Also, it is completely unthinkable that the one Christ, who surely becomes ours in justification, would only be imparted to us by degrees and in parts. We receive Him completely, and therefore our justification must be complete from the outset.
19. What, then, is the correct view regarding the state of the believer after he is once justified?
In justification, all sins—past, present, and future—are forgiven at once with regard to the liability to punishment or the curse of the law, under which those sins stand. In this sense, the forgiveness of sins precedes the committing of sins (Psa 103:3–4). Still, sin as it actually exists certainly retains its character as sin as far as its inherent character is concerned. If this were to be removed, then the law of God would have to be abrogated and sinners would be ex legis (outside the law)—something that would be antinomianism and is contradicted by Scripture and experience alike. Moreover, when the consciousness of sin awakens in the believer, again and again there must be a renewed application of justification to the conscience. To that extent, one can say that justification is repeated. In the forum of heaven or before God it occurs only once, but the application of this single pronouncement to the conscience occurs again and again in renewal. Scripture calls that the forgiveness of sins (1 John 1:9; Matt 6:12; 1 John 2:1). At the same time, however, resident in this forgiveness is the consciousness that it is an application of the absolute justification that is granted with the first exercise of faith. The believer does not regard himself as fallen away from Christ, but makes use of the Mediator, who all along has been his possession. “We have an advocate,” John says [1 John 2:1]—not, “We obtain Him.” Hence some say: In justification future sins are not forgiven explicite [explicitly] and formaliter [formally], but vertualiter, that is, in principle and potentially. In initial justification resides the root of all subsequent forgiveness of guilt, so that in any case it is wrong to make a coordinated series of justifications. One cannot say that the initial forgiveness of sins that occurs in justification proper is as dependent on later forgiveness as vice versa.
20. Does the second aspect of justification also have a retroactive purpose?
In general, one can say that this aspect looks forward to the future insofar as it grants the right to the inheritance. However, insofar as the principles of that inheritance are already given prior to justification, it also reaches backward. The believer is already regenerate and converted. In his justification he learns to see and to confess that this, too, has been given him on the basis of the merits of Christ imputed to him in justification.
21. What is the relationship between faith and justification?
Opinions diverge considerably on this question. Naturally, those opinions must be set aside that rest on an erroneous conception of justification itself:
a)The Roman Catholic view that faith formed by love, being infused into us in first justification, enables us to merit eternal life by doing good works.
b)The Socinian view that faith includes obedience to the commandments of Christ.
c)The Remonstrant view that here faith counts insofar as it produces good works and is their root.
d)The view of the Rationalists of varying shades that in justification faith functions as the inward attitude demanded by God in antithesis to outward acts.
e)The view of many recent theologians that in a mystical manner faith is the principle of the life of Christ in us. This life of Christ, then, is the ground of our justification, not as imputed to us but rather as transplanted in us. This transplantation or overflow is certainly not yet complete, but still it is potentially present by faith. From this conception, then, naturally flows a falsification of the concept of faith as well as a falsification of the concept of justification. The former is divested of its conscious character and ethicized, mysticized, and made into a life within man. All who make the imputation of the merits of the Mediator dependent on mystical union, as discussed above, move in this direction; so, for example, Ebrard.
All these views mentioned so far agree in denying the imputation of the merits of Christ as the sole basis of justification. But even after eliminating these errors, a difference of opinion still remains among adherents of the orthodox doctrine regarding the role of faith in justification. Various terms have been proposed and used; for example: instrument, condition, conditio sine qua non, preparation in the subject, etc.
The term causa instrumentalis [instrumental cause] was at first generally in use freely. Later, that was otherwise. It was said that the expression “instrument of justification” was not found in Scripture. This in itself is not sufficient for rejecting the term, for there are more theological terms that are not used in Scripture and that we would be loath to do without. Further, it was said that if faith is the instrument of justification, then the question arises, “Whose instrument?” Naturally, either God’s or ours. It cannot be the former, for faith is not an activity of God but an activity of man. Neither can it be the latter, for what is in us can never be an instrument of an act of God. To say that by our believing we cooperate instrumentally with God in bringing about justification appears to denigrate the honor of God.
Against these objections it must be observed:
a)That Scripture in fact says that we are justified pistei (Rom 3:28); we are justified dia pisteōs (Rom 3:22, 30; Eph 2:8). These expressions cannot be understood other than in an instrumental sense. Here the dative case is evidently casus instrumentalis [an instrumental dative]. According to Greek usage it cannot have another meaning. And that this is not accidental is clear from the further description dia tēs pisteōs [e.g., Rom 3:30]. Never is it said, on the other hand, that we are justified dia tēn pistin, “on account of our faith.”
b)From this it is sufficiently clear that faith has a certain instrumentality in justification. But one may go still further and must even say: Faith appears as an instrument of God in justification. Scripture also states that explicitly: “inasmuch as God is one, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith” (Rom 8:30). Thus there is a sense in which one may say that God justifies us by the instrumentality of faith.
c)No less can it be said that faith appears here as instrument on our side, used by a person who undergoes justification. Of course, this does not mean that by faith we become the cause of God pronouncing the verdict of justification in a physical sense, but certainly that insofar as God, when He declares us just, takes faith into account. If there were no faith, there would be no verdict of justification. There is a bond between the two according to the ordaining of God.
The question now arises, “To what extent can faith be God’s instrument in our justification?” This can be so in more than one respect. In the first place, faith is the indispensable prerequisite for justification. In His sovereignty, God has simply established this rule: that He will justify no one on the basis of the merits of the Mediator other than the one who believes. Now, if we posit that there simply is this rule and also that God Himself acts in accordance with it—that, further, man cannot exercise this faith of himself but only if God works it in him—then it is immediately obvious that by giving man faith, God Himself calls into existence the indispensable prerequisite of justification, and to this degree He thus uses faith as a means to bring about justification. Faith is His means, since it is His gift. At the same time it is our means, since by grace He has granted it to us to exercise this faith. Both go together very well.
Further, it should be kept in view that, as an act of God, justification has two aspects—namely, the pronouncement in the forum of heaven and the application of this pronouncement in the forum of conscience. The latter occurs mediately by faith that focuses on the declaration of God made in His Word. In order for justification to reach its endpoint and also be proclaimed in the consciousness of man, there must be an activity of faith. Now, this is not the proclamation itself, but it belongs so inseparably to the proclamation that one may safely say that God justifies us in the forum of conscience by faith.
22. In how many respects, then, does faith occur in relationship to justification?
In two respects. As was described above in detail, it is—as knowledge, assent, and trust—the indispensable prerequisite of justification. Scripture appears to indicate that by the expression ek pisteōs that occurs along with dia pisteōs. So viewed, faith precedes justification logically (not chronologically). But in the second place, there is also a point where assured trust becomes the means of our passive justification itself—or, expressed more properly, of the consciousness of this passive justification, its acceptance by us. That is what the older theologians meant when they said that believing itself is man’s being justified. That is why they also distinguished carefully between different acts in justifying faith:
a)The actus dispositivus or praeparationius, “the dispositive or preparatory act.” Meant by that is faith, insofar as it logically precedes justification.
b)The actus justificationis formaliter—that is, that exercise of faith itself by which my assured trust becomes an understanding of the proclaimed justification. This is “the formal justifying act” of faith.
c)The actus consolatorius, “the trusting or consolation-bringing act”—that is, the exercise of faith by which I accept that in the past all my sins have been forgiven and that I have been transferred to a state of being just before God, a doctrinal assertion as Paul states in Romans 5:1, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” That, too, is the language of faith.
Maresius, who makes this distinction, says further that in the first aspect faith precedes justification, in the second aspect it is simultaneous with justification, and in the third aspect it follows justification. Burman expresses himself similarly.
Both aspects must be maintained. There is an exercise of faith that assures me, “You are justified,” and there is an exercise of faith that must precede justification. The danger simply lurks in this: that in describing faith one begins with the first aspect and leaves no room for the second. It is necessary, therefore, to emphasize the sequence in which the steps of faith occur: (1) faith with a measure of trust that takes refuge and is assured; (2) active justification in the tribunal of God; (3) passive justification, the announcement of God’s verdict in the tribunal of conscience; (4) coinciding and merging with this, the most mature assurance of faith, the most assured trust. Naturally, by this it is not at all maintained that these four stages can be distinguished in the consciousness of the believer himself. It may very well be that he passes imperceptibly from the one stage to the other. But the logical order is such, and if one foregoes seeking the exact point of transition, one will be able to discern the distinctions involved.
23. How can one further designate faith in relation to justification?
As the organ that possesses, the organon lēptikon (organon lēptikon). This is meant as follows. By faith the sinner appropriates the merits of Christ to himself, and there thus arises in his consciousness a unity between Christ and himself. These merits are the dikaiōma, the “legal ground,” upon which God’s pronouncement is based. It follows, then, that the sinner by faith makes his own a righteousness on the basis of which he can be justified before God. Faith justifies insofar as it possesses Christ.
This description has good sense and can even serve to eliminate dangerous errors. So, to say in general that faith is an instrument in justification always evokes the idea that different things collaborate in justification, of which our faith is one. An “instrument” usually contributes something from its own capacity by the fact that it produces a certain change in the material on which it works. That, of course, cannot be said of faith. The merits of Christ, the only ground of our justification before God, do not first have to undergo processing before they can serve as our righteousness. They are not changed by our faith. It is not these merits as material plus the form given to them by faith that justify. With this in view, one certainly cannot be surprised that objection began to be raised against the use of the term “instrument.” That objection falls away as soon as we use the expression “possessing organ.” This does full justice to the scriptural expressions discussed above, and to those texts that speak of believing as a lambanein (lēptikon derives from lambanein).
Still, there is another side to this matter. It is certain that God’s ordaining is such that no one is declared righteous except the person who by believing accepts the merits of the Mediator. The question, however, is whether this subjective, accepting act is the real ground of the unity between Christ and us in the tribunal of God. One senses that this, strictly speaking, cannot be. That in justification God imputes to us the merits of Christ does not occur apart from considering faith, but still not on the basis of faith as a per se and unavoidable functioning legal basis. That we believe in Christ, viewed in the abstract, is not a sufficient basis to identify ourselves with Him in terms of rights. The basis for that is not in us or in any act of ours, but exclusively in an act of God. This act of God is the judicial act of imputation (chshb, logizomai, imputare), by which the merits of the Mediator are reckoned to us for our benefit, credited to our account, and their fruits allocated to us as if these merits were personally our own. The certainty of this resides in God’s act, not in ours. This is all the more striking when one considers that these merits are intended for us personally already before justification, namely, in the counsel of peace and in the satisfaction of Christ. There, of course, the basis of justification cannot be faith, but on the contrary, faith is the future gift of this intention. One must thus avoid viewing the situation as follows: Prior to faith, the Mediator and the sinner are detached from each other without any legal bond; by faith, a legal unity arises; on the basis of this legal unity, God pronounces the verdict of justification. Rather, the correct conception is this: Already prior to faith the merits of the Mediator were intended for the elect sinner; at the same time, however, there was a determination of God that the formal act of imputation would not be carried out before the sinner by faith came subjectively to the consciousness of this free, sovereign imputation. When this takes place, then, on the basis of His free, sovereign intention (which naturally is completely in accord with His justice), God pronounces His formal verdict that the sinner is justified in consideration of his faith.
It occurs to us that, for these reasons, a not-entirely-incorrect consideration underlay the proposal to call faith a conditia [condition] or causa [cause] sine qua non of justification. These expressions certainly exclude every possibility that one would come to view faith as the judicial origin of imputation. Still, it is not advisable to adopt and substitute them for the terms “instrument” and “possessing organ.” They can lead to misconception on the other side, since they sound much too vague. To say “condition,” moreover, can lead to thinking of a meritorious condition. “Causa sine qua non” leaves the issue of the relation between faith and justification completely undefined. It evokes the thought that occurrence is mechanical in this matter, as if we merely have to do with a blind sequence: first faith, then justification, about which nothing more is to be said. That is not at all the case. There is resident in the nature of faith something by which it can be this causa sine qua non. Where there is a causa at work that is indeed sine qua non, there must also be a genuine relationship. That two things constantly accompany each other must have its meaning. Such a causa sine qua non must be either a meriting cause or something like that. So that is also true of faith. Faith is the subjective side of the objective imputation of the merits of Christ, which is the sole judicial basis of our justification. By our believing we identify ourselves with this imputation or transfer; we approve it, accept it. By our believing activity with respect to the Mediator we appropriate to ourselves personally what God objectively imputes to us. Faith as a whole is thus a faithful image in us of the gracious activity of God outside us. And it is on the basis of this that Scripture conjoins these two so closely and even speaks of faith as being reckoned as righteousness (logizetai hē pistis autou eis dikaiosynēn, Rom 4:5; cf. Gal 3:6). It was a complete misconception and misunderstanding of the nature of faith when the Remonstrants deduced from this that faith, now replacing works as in fact the judicial basis, is reckoned to us as righteousness. Faith here stands for the object of faith. This can be because faith receives and accepts Christ, mirrors Christ, and places itself in Christ, so that it itself, as it were, retreats from view and only presents its object to us. Since all true faith flows out like a stream into Christ and loses itself in Christ, Scripture can say without danger of misunderstanding, “Faith is reckoned as righteousness.”
24. What has been treated so far?
The judicial relationship of the sinner (justificatio peccatoris).
25. Do the theologians speak of still another justification?
Yes, they also speak of the justificatio justi, the justification of the just, and describe it as the declaration by which the person who has been justified by faith, revealing his status of righteousness and the genuineness of his faith in good works, is declared to be one who lives uprightly.
26. What should be noted concerning this?
a)That without doubt there is a testimony of good works and conduct from which believers themselves and others can draw strengthened assurance that they truly are children of God, that Christ’s power is working in them, and that they are increasing in living righteously.
b)That without doubt that testimony drawn from the life of a Christian can be joined with the justificatio passiva [passive justification], the pronouncement in the forum of conscience that we stand righteous before God.
c)That nevertheless, the word “justification” used in this sense takes on another meaning than that previously used. It now means to manifest as righteous; passively, to be manifested as righteous to oneself and to others. This belongs more to the application and the results of justification proper than to justification itself.
d)Some attach a somewhat different meaning to the term “justification” in this connection. Where there is justification, there must naturally also be an accusation, a charge. Now it is the devil who constantly disturbs believers and brings accusations against them that their faith is feigned, “as if it were but an artificial and white-faced mask.” To this, God now declares, by the testimony of His Holy Spirit, that this accusation is false and in doing so absolves them from this fear of insincerity. This is the way Witsius, for example, sees it. Justification is thus simply the declaration of God to reassure our conscience that this particular sin is not present in us and in no way to base further judicial consequences on it. While for the previous view the justificatio justi [justification of the just] is seen as a manifestation of the justificatio peccatoris [justification of the sinner], here it appears more as an exoneration from the sin of hypocrisy. Moreover, this and the previous view do not exclude each other. It is only a question of the basis on which, in this connection, we use the word “justification.”
e)This distinction between the justification of a sinner and the justification of a just person has also been applied to the Letter of James and used as a means to reconcile its statements with the declarations of the Apostle Paul. When James says that someone is not only justified by faith but also by works (Jas 2:24), he means, according to this view, that the works of this person have been for himself and for others a demonstration in God’s name that he is in the state of justification by faith alone. Justification proper, then, is sola fide; its manifestation (which here is also called justification) is fide et operibus [by faith and works]. In support of this view it is argued that James cannot have in view initial and proper justification, since he cites an incident from Abraham’s life—namely, the offering up of Isaac—that took place long after his initial justification; so, too, with Rahab the prostitute.
Others say no, James is speaking of initial justification, the justificatio peccatoris [justification of the sinner]. He means to say that this justification is not wrought by a dead faith. If someone has such a dead faith, in which works are not virtually present, then he does not obtain justification. That is expressed as follows: A person is justified by works, not only by faith. Abraham’s faith was such a living faith, for as was clear later, the seed of works was in it. “The Scripture was thus fulfilled, ‘Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’ ” (Jas 2:23). That is, it turned out that the declaration regarding Abraham, “He believed God,” was true, that this faith could indeed be called genuine, living faith, in distinction from dead faith, demon-faith, the antinomian faith spoken of in the previous verses.
Both explanations of this pericope from James provide a satisfactory sense and remove the basic contradiction between him and Paul. It is difficult to choose between the two. Both can be reconciled with the aim that James clearly had in view when he wrote in this way. His argument is aimed against libertines who used the teaching of grace of the gospel as a cloak for their licentiousness. They reasoned, as all antinomians do, in this fashion: Good works are not regarded as the basis of our righteousness before God; therefore they are (in every respect) superfluous—yes, even dangerous—and also cannot be ordained by God as marks of the genuineness of faith. According to the first explanation of James above, this apostle is zealous against the position just mentioned—namely, that good works cannot be the criterion for the sincerity of faith. According to the other explanation above, James is zealous against the basic error that lurked in the view of faith itself, not that of a faith that denies itself but that of a passive, dead faith, and in its passivity, self-centered faith.
In his Letters to the Romans and to the Galatians, Paul naturally had to do with entirely different opponents—namely, with Pharisaic proponents of salvation by works, who replaced faith with works. That is why his polemic turned out differently. His watchword, though not expressed with the same words, is still in its intention sola fide, “by faith only.” The watchword of James is sed non fide solitaria, “but not by a faith that is solitary, standing alone.” The one watchword does not exclude the other.
27. Is this justificatio justi [justification of the just] discussed here synonymous with the so-called “second justification” of Roman Catholics?
No, it is altogether different. The Catholics naturally use the Letter of James to maintain this distinction. What the Reformed understand as the justification of the just is not an act of God by which He allots some reward to the sinner. According to the Catholics, that surely happens, and then on the basis of the good works of man. This Catholic second justification thus looks ahead; our justificatio justi points back. Theirs is according to merit; ours is by grace.
28. Is the word righteousness and its corresponding adjective, righteous, used in Scripture of inherent righteousness in already-justified sinners?
Yes. First John 3:7 reads: “Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever does righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous” (cf. 3:8–10, where committing sin is the opposite of doing righteousness). Of the parents of John the Baptist it is said, “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and statues of the Lord, blameless” (Luke 1:6). In some places it is difficult to decide what is meant: “standing as righteous before God” or “being righteous by inherent righteousness.”
29. Can this inherent righteousness ever be or become the ground upon which one is acquitted in the judgment of God?
No, the covenant of grace excludes that. That this is still called righteousness follows from the fact that it is required of us. It is in that sense an obligation that we have toward God, only not an obligation that is considered in justification. A believer is obligated to fulfill the entire law, and he is not exempt from a single commandment. But he has come out from being under the law as a means of justification.
30. Can you show that the inherent righteousness of the regenerate does not come into consideration with God as the judicial basis for their justification?
a)This follows first of all from the fact that the active obedience of Christ is imputed to us and the benefits of righteousness are granted on the basis of it. If now our own inherent righteousness were to also come into consideration, then there would be a redundancy of judicial grounds—two where only one is necessary.
b)Inherent righteousness is imperfect in every respect and therefore totally inadequate to be the basis of our justification before God. Inherent righteousness that is valid in legalistic justification must be completely perfect and must be equal to the law in all its parts (Heidelberg Catechism 62 [“… the righteousness which can stand before God’s judgment must be absolutely perfect and in complete agreement with the law of God”]; Gal 3:10–11). No one approaches that in this life.
c)This inherent righteousness itself is not a product of our own works but is a gift of God’s grace—a fruit, in turn, of the imputed obedience of Christ. Otherwise, one would have to assume that God flattered the pride of man by imparting an apparent righteousness and granting life on that basis, while in reality his righteousness comes from Christ—similar to the way one pretends to a child that it has done and accomplished something when in reality it has not done anything. God does not mislead believers in this way. They know full well, as far as their persons are concerned, that they are justified freely (dōrean, Rom 3:24).
d)The polemic of the Apostle Paul is not directed in the first place or exclusively against those who asserted that the works of the unregenerate person are his righteousness before God. In particular, the Judaizers, whom he opposes in the Letter to the Galatians, certainly agreed that faith was necessary. But, they said, faith plus the works of the believer are necessary. By contending against this view, the apostle clearly expressed that he also intended to exclude works done after regeneration. His antithesis between faith and works is absolute.
e)The justification of a sinner before God takes place entirely by grace: “and are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24). If a part of our justification waits on our works, then just to that extent grace decreases. No boasting remains for us (Rom 11:6; 3:27, Eph 2:8–9).
f)The opposite view confuses the two covenants: the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, legalistic and evangelical justification.
31. Is it not true that on the day of judgment believers will be justified as possessing an inherent righteousness?
a)The final judgment will indeed be pronounced on persons who possess an inherent righteousness. But this in no way means that this judgment will grant them eternal life on the basis of this inherent righteousness. Rather, Scripture teaches that then they will be addressed as blessed of the Father and as heirs of the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world [Matt 25:34]—in other words, as objects of God’s free love that is granted to them in Christ Jesus and with regard to His merits.
b)On the day of judgment the good works of the righteous will certainly enter into the judgment of God, as well as their inherent righteousness that has been given to them at their death—not, however, as the basis of their righteousness before God but as the marks of the genuineness of their faith. And that not so much for themselves, for besides the fact that they have already been completely justified in this life, they, for the greater part, will also have already tasted for a considerable time the blessedness of heaven. This justification on the day of judgment will thus be an open justification, a justificatio publica [public justification], before the eyes of the world. God will declare that these, His elect, first consumed by unrighteousness so that Satan could accuse them of everything, are now completely rescued from that plight and are freed from all the consequences of unrighteousness. Naturally, this will also include the declaration that sin has been completely removed from them, that they possess a perfect inherent righteousness and thus can enter heaven, but not that they therefore may or are entitled to enter. In eternity, too, the child of God will have no other right of inheritance to the benefits of the kingdom than what has been obtained by Christ. Perfect holiness in the glorified state always remains a fruit of the merits of the Mediator.
c)On that judgment day, believers will be granted a reward of grace on the basis of, or rather in proportion to, their good works. After God has once given this promise to those who are His, it will naturally be a matter of His justness to fulfill it. But this reward does not take place according to merit; it takes place by grace (Heidelberg Catechism 63; cf. also Heb 6:10, “For God is not unjust that He would forget your work”).
32. Is it true that this doctrine of imputed righteousness opens the door to antinomianism?
a)No, for the imputation of the merits of the Mediator is not something that remains outside of us but has as a consequence our subjective re-creation. Justification is thus in a judicial sense the root of our sanctification. Where the former is present, the latter cannot remain in abeyance.
b)As far as the temporal order is concerned, regeneration even appears, along with conversion, before justification. No one says that he is aware of standing righteous before God who is not regenerate and has not received a new principle of life. From this it follows that his conviction regarding justification will also be governed by this new principle that seeks God’s glory in all things (cf. Gal 2:19, “… so that I might live to God”).
33. What should we answer when someone says that in justification, declaring us to be righteous, God does not act according to truth, since in ourselves we are still full of sin and unrighteousness?
a)God’s judgment pronounced in justification does not mean that we possess a perfect inherent righteousness. If God said that, He would be making an untrue declaration. But He does not do that.
b)God’s judgment would likewise be untrue if He imputed to us an imperfect righteousness of the Mediator as if it were perfect. This would be ex injuria [by injustice]. But this, too, is not the case. Nothing at all is lacking from the righteousness of Christ.
c)God’s judgment would be precisely untrue if He declared us righteous on the basis of our persistently imperfect subjective righteousness. On Rome’s position, a justification according to truth during this life is impossible.
d)The truthfulness of God’s judgment rests on the truthfulness of imputation. This is no fiction. In reality, God ascribes the merits of Christ to our account. To deny that this is a reality is also to deny the reality of the atonement, in which, conversely, our sins are imputed to Christ. If the Mediator can occupy our legal position without that detracting from the truthfulness of God, so also we can occupy the legal position of the Mediator, and God’s judgment concerning that can be fully according to truth.
e)Scripture declares with emphasis that in this action, its paradoxical character notwithstanding, God is fully righteous: “so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26).
34. What is to be said to the objection that the Mediator as man needed his righteousness for himself?
It is said that Christ, by becoming man, placed Himself eo ipso [in itself] in all the relationships in which a man is related to the law. Therefore, His active obedience was His obligation for Himself. It should be noted, however, that:
a)The righteousness of Christ imputed to us in justification is that of His person. This person is clearly a divine person (Acts 20:28). This divine person was not under the law, hypo nomon, but was the law in His own person, the law itself. When, in freely humiliating Himself by means of His assumed human nature, He places Himself under the law, in this way He obtains a righteousness that is not for Himself but can be imputed to others. Galatians 4:4, therefore, says that Christ has been “born under the law” (genomenon hypo nomon), in distinction from being “born of a woman.”
b)In His work as mediator, Christ was entirely a persona publica [public person] and not a persona privata [private person]. That is, we may not regard Him as a man alongside of other men, but His significance was taken up entirely in His official calling. Nothing of what He was or did, He was or did for Himself. From the beginning on, His official significance rested on everything. From this it follows that there can be no thought that His righteousness was necessary for Himself.
c)The best answer to this objection will remain the observation that now Christ is certainly not under the law as He was during the days of His servitude here on earth. From this it is abundantly clear how “being under the law” was not something inseparable that derived of itself from His human nature but something that He voluntarily accepted, and therefore also lasted but for a time and ceased of itself as soon as the particular relationship ceased by which it was caused—namely, the state of His humiliation.
35. In what did the error of Osiander consist in the matter of justification?
Andreas Osiander (1498–1552) made a sharp distinction between our redemption through Christ and our justification. Of the former, he acknowledged that it occurs by the merits of Christ, but he denied that this belongs to justification properly called. The latter was understood by him subjectively in the sense of “making inherently righteousness.” To this extent, then, Osiander went along with Rome. “To free a thief from the gallows does not mean to make a thief good and righteous” was his watchword. His divergence from Rome (and of course from the Reformation) comes when the question is posed how man obtains this inherent righteousness. Rome said: by the working of the Holy Spirit, who gives us fides formata [formed faith]. Osiander said: by the communication of the essential righteousness of God, from the divine being, from God Himself. In this lurked a pantheistic principle, and the rest of the Reformers were on guard not to develop their doctrine of mystical union in this direction. According to them, to belong to the body of Christ meant something entirely different, and to take into oneself the essential righteousness of God meant to participate in a mingling of being with God. The pantheistic origin of this speculation of Osiander also came out in that he made Christ, the God-man, even apart from sin to be the ideal, the perfect realization of God. God is disposed to become man. By the entrance of sin the course of the process is changed, but the terminus is not essentially altered. Adam was already created, not as the image of God, but as the image of Christ, the ideal God-man.
36. Is it not true that in Scripture our righteousness by which we are justified is called “the righteousness of God”?
Yes, this expression occurs several times: “For the righteousness of God is revealed in it [the gospel] from faith to faith” (Rom 1:17); “for a demonstration of His righteousness” (Rom 3:26); “namely the righteousness of God” (Rom 3:22). This dikaiosynē theou [righteousness of God] is either righteousness as an inherent attribute in God (Rom 3:26), so that it can be said to be revealed in the gospel or in the atonement of Christ, or by it is meant the righteousness of a sinner that obtains before God (= genitivus objectivus [objective genitive]), or, finally, the righteousness that is provided, effected, produced, applied by God (= genitivus subjectivus [subjective genitive]. The latter is the most probable. In any case, by it cannot be meant an essential righteousness of God, poured out or communicated. See Philippians 3:9, “And be found in Him, not having my righteousness that is by the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, namely, the righteousness that is from God through faith.”
37. Are there still other grounds to which appeal is made in defense of this false view?
Yes, use is made of everything that Scripture teaches regarding the mystical union between Christ and believers. Above all, statements in the Gospel of John are forced to do duty for this pantheistic mysticism. Even the figurative language of the Savior, when He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, the light,” etc. [John 14:6], is misused for this purpose.
38. What consequences did the error of Osiander have?
Some went to the opposite extreme. They began to be afraid of the assertion that it is the righteousness of Christ as God that is imputed to us and tried to limit the righteousness that becomes ours by imputation to His human nature. However, that likewise cannot be. If the divine person had nothing to do with it, then it would not be the righteousness of the Mediator, and it also did not possess that worth that it had to possess for the justification of sinners. The line between error and truth is not the line between the divine and the human nature. It is rather the line that runs between inherent essential righteousness and the adherent righteousness of merits. What is imputed to us is not a part of the being of the Mediator but an objective possession of the Mediator, the treasure of His merits. These merits were once in the Mediator—or, to speak with complete accuracy, what they flowed from was in the Mediator, namely, His passive and active obedience. Still, of themselves the merits cannot be something inherent, but always signify an objective relationship, a judicial pronouncement. That was also the case with Christ. He did not have His merits. He was His merits. Still, it remains true that the only way for us to have these merits imputed to us resides in what the Mediator Himself has obtained. But that, too, only means that those merits follow the Mediator to whom they adhere, and in no way means that the merits are the being of the Mediator himself. It is necessary to make these distinctions, which for many will perhaps appear subtle, since at present the danger of a confusion of essential righteousness and the righteousness of merits is especially great.
39. What view do the Socinians have of justification?
According to them, it consists in the forgiveness of sins and endowing with eternal life. Since, however, they do not teach a satisfaction of Christ to the demands of God’s righteousness—indeed, even eliminate this attribute—this description must have a totally different meaning for them than it does for us. By justification, they understand that God, out of pure mercy and benevolence, gives us these two things. Further, they maintain that faith (understood as obedience to Christ) is the indispensable condition for justification. This, however, is not so meant as if God declares us righteous on the basis of this faith-obedience as its meriting cause. Faith is a conditio sine qua non [indispensable condition], nothing more. Socinus says, “So that we must be on guard not to hold the holiness and innocence of life as the effect of our justification before God, and also not to affirm that faith is the effecting or moving cause of our justification before God, but only the cause without which God has determined that that justification will not become ours.” One sees here how justification is a sovereign, rather arbitrary act that has no further judicial basis than God’s free will.
40. What do the Arminians teach regarding justification?
According to them, justification is only a forgiving of sins. This forgiveness of sins they see as identical to the imputation of righteousness. The basis of this forgiveness does not reside in the imputation of the merits of Christ, since they deny that Christ has brought about a genuine satisfaction for sin. What is imputed to us is not the righteousness of Christ, for Scripture nowhere teaches “that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, but only that faith is reckoned to us for righteousness, and that for the sake of Christ [propter Christum]” (so Limborch). And Curcellaeus says, “Nowhere does Scripture teach that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. Also, that is absurd. Surely no person unrighteous in himself can be formally righteous with the righteousness of another any more than a Moor can be white with the whiteness of another.” The difference between the Socinians and the Arminians appears at two points:
a)The latter understand the meaning of the death of Christ somewhat differently than the former. Although not a complete satisfaction, it was still accepted by God as a revelation of his governmental righteousness. It removed obstacles that otherwise would have made justification impossible.
b)They substitute something else for the imputed righteousness of the Mediator, which the Socinians do not do. As we saw, Socinus protested against regarding our obedience of faith as the effecting, meriting cause of justification. The Remonstrants are not so reticent. They assert their fides obsequiosa or evangelica [obedient or evangelical faith] as the grounds of justification. A new covenant of works is thus established on the ruins of the old, by means of the work of Christ. Thus, while the Socinians no longer have what may properly be called justification, the Arminian justification is a legalistic justification.
The image used by Curcellaeus is, of course, completely irrelevant. Whiteness for the Moor is not a relationship but would necessarily be an inherent characteristic. No one can be declared white. For righteousness it is otherwise. That is a relationship. In the same sentence Scripture calls Christ sin, as we are called the righteousness of God in Him. This, of course, does not mean that He is made sin subjectively in the sense of a quality. But it does mean that He is in the legal position, the legal relationship of a sinner. Sin, therefore, has two meanings: (a) an inherent quality; (b) an adherent relationship. In the latter sense, Christ was a sinner for our sake, although to prevent misunderstanding it is always advisable not to make use of this way of speaking. But that does not mean that someone white was declared to be black, that a black robe was put on him and the pronouncement made, “He is black.” The entire image of skin color and a robe is mistaken (cf. 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13).
41. Is it true that Scripture nowhere teaches the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, as the Remonstrants claim?
No, in Philippians 3:9 it is taught in nearly so many words that it is not his own righteousness that the sinner possesses, but the righteousness of Christ. Romans 3:25–26 teaches the same thing. The expression “faith is counted as righteousness” [Rom 4:5] was explained above by the nature of faith itself.
42. What distinguishes the justification concept of the more recent speculative theologians?
a)A disdain for the concept of “imputation” and of the “transfer of merits.” This old conception is called mechanical, external, magic, unreal, and unsatisfactory. It is maintained that it leads to a fiction, as if the mind and verdict of God were not the highest reality.
b)For this old, despised principle of forensic reckoning, this view substitutes the ethical principle of the infusion of righteousness. It seeks to secure for faith its old place by saying that it is that attitude that makes the sinner receptive for the righteousness to be infused.
c)Not all have the same conception regarding the nature of what is infused into the believer and taken into him by faith. Some offer a completely pantheistic explanation for that. Others keep more within theistic limits. The former provide a repristination of Osiander’s heresy, against which the Reformers expressed themselves so decisively. In any case, everything transpires entirely within the sphere of being and not within the legal sphere. No place remains for the Mediator as surety. The Mediator as a philosophical intermediate being, to unite God and man, becomes everything.
d)Some recent theologians identify regeneration with justification. This is related to the fact that they, carried along in part by the pantheistic direction described above, make the mystical union (transformed into a unity of being) the judicial ground for our justification. Since, according to them, this unity in being originates in regeneration, justification proper must also take place there. This is Ebrard’s opinion, who therefore also declares both propositions to be the same in meaning: Christ justifies us; faith justifies us. He denies that Scripture speaks of an imputation of the righteousness of Christ (just as the Remonstrants deny that) and wants to replace that with the scriptural expression: “By justification grace comes over us.” And that will then be taken in the most real sense. We become united to the person of Christ through a substantial unity of life.
43. What should be said to refute this most recent form of the doctrine of justification?
a)This conception is more dangerous than the other mentioned earlier, since it presents itself as more attractive and apparently leaves untouched the background of the atonement of Christ. The pantheistic principle is at work in it in a more hidden manner.
b)Scripture opposes this entire conception as forcefully as possible. Faith is not the kind of mystical receptivity that is taught here. Believing is a conscious act, an appropriating of the merits of the Mediator with one’s consciousness, not a mysterious imbibing of the being of Christ. The most unclear and nebulous conception that one forms of faith arises precisely from the fact that this idea of a mystical union with Christ hovers in the background. It is therefore most necessary to describe faith precisely and to analyze it as closely as possible, lest in place of the scriptural idea of faith another that differs from it totally be imposed on us. Here too, as always, vagueness and generality expose us to error.
c)In this viewpoint, it is true only in a figurative sense that faith justifies us. The receptivity to take in food does not feed us and does not provide for our growth. However, those who hold this view will have faith understood in this way. Faith, which is a subjective deed, is supposed to have this wonderful capacity to draw to itself the objective Christ with all His treasures and gifts of grace. Note carefully: Faith draws out of heaven and takes into itself not the merits of Christ but the living Christ Himself. This is a mystical and completely impossible concept.
d)The motive that prompts the formation of this theory, even apart from its pantheistic origin, is not an innocent motive. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness solely in the judgment of God, it is thought, is too mechanical, too little real. But why? Apparently because in it man is not judged according to what he himself is, but according to what Christ has done for him. The mechanical here thus lies in the transfer involved. In other words, man can only take satisfaction in a justification before God that he himself has earned. That, however, is a holiness-by-works principle. Moreover, it cannot be sustained, for in any case the payment of prior guilt must be provided for by means of imputed merits. Thus it is either one or the other: One must either deny that atonement for sins is necessary, or here one must admit the so-called mechanical. Even through mystical union with Christ, the payment for prior guilt can never become our own in this completely real sense. Those sins are in the past and the merits of Christ are in the past; and so it is impossible to see how a connection between the two could be established other than by the act of God’s imputation. Thus one sees that this protest against the external and mechanical results in a protest against the heart of the doctrine of the atonement.
e)The result of this modern view must be that man is dissuaded from trust in Christ and led to trust in himself. If in a real sense righteousness becomes his own, then he also no longer needs to go outside himself; faith and the trust of faith in the scriptural sense have become superfluous.
44. How are they justified who do not arrive at a conscious activity of faith; for example, the children of believing parents who die in infancy?
For them one must assume that God’s justifying act follows immediately upon the implanting of the seed of faith, and thus upon regeneration. Scripture, however, does not speak expressly about such a justification, because justification belongs to the conscious side of the ordo salutis. There can be no thought of consciousness in this life for children dying in infancy.