Cults and the Biblical Doctrine of Justification by Faith ā Part 2
By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon; ©2000 |
Continuing their discussion of justification, Drs. John Ankerberg and John Weldon focus this time on imputed righteous which is apart from the law, and justification, accomplished in harmony with Godās justice. |
Cults and the Biblical Doctrine of Justification by Faith ā Part 2
The previous article covered:
- Justification is an undeserved free gift of Godās mercy;
- Justification is entirely accomplished by God, once for all. We now continue with point 3.
3. Justification involves an imputed righteousness entirely apart from works: the righteousness of God Himself has been given to the believer. It has nothing to do with a personās own righteousness (Rom. 4:5,6,17-25). As we stated in Protestants and Catholics: Do They Now Agree:
- Both the Old and New Testaments teach the Protestant view of legal (forensic) justification. Consider the following evidence for the Old Testament view of justification: āConcerning the Old Testament word hitsdiq, usually rendered ājustified,ā more often than not it is āā¦used in a forensic or legal sense, as meaning, not āto make just or righteous,ā but āto declare judicially that one is in harmony with the law.āā¦In the Old Testament, the concept of righteousness frequently appears in a forensic or juridical context. A righteous man is one who has been declared by a judge to be free from guilt.ā
In his book Justification, Catholic theologian Hans Kung argues for this view when he says, āAccording to the original biblical usage of the term, ājustificationā must be defined as a declaring just by court order.ā Other Catholic theologians have agreed with Kung.
The New Testament Scriptures agree with the Old, clearly showing that justification is 1) a crediting of righteousness on the basis of a personās faith, 2) a completed act of God, and 3) something that occurs wholly apart from personal merit or good works:
- āā¦to the man whoā¦trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousnessā¦.[How blessed is] the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from worksā (Rom. 4:5, 6, emphasis added).
- āTherefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christā (Rom. 5:1 NASB, emphasis added).
- āFor we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Lawā (Rom. 3:38 NASB, emphasis added).
Please also read Luke 18:1-14; Acts 13:38,39: Gal. 2:16.
The weight of these Scriptures is formidable; it is indeed impossible to deny the biblical teaching of justification by faith alone. For someone to say that the Bible teaches that sinners āare justified by Christ and by good worksā is simply wrong.[1]
It is not merely that God overlooks our sin and guilt, but that full and entire holiness is credited to our account. Bruce Milne describes the transaction this way:
- Our justification is not simply a matter of Godās overlooking our guilt; our need can be met only if righteousness, full and entire holiness of character, is credited to us. This is the amazing gift of grace. Christās law-keeping and perfect righteousness are made ours by faith in Him (1 Cor. 1:30; Phil. 3:9). It is not simply that our abysmal failure in lifeās moral examination is overlooked; we pass with 100%, First Class Honours! Well may Athanasius speak of āthe amazing exchangeā whereby, as Calvin puts it, āthe Son of God though spotlessly pure took upon Himself the ignominy and shame of our sin and in return clothes us with His purity.ā[2]
Righteousness is imputed because the believer actually is united to Christ. In other words, because the believer is āin Christ,ā the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him. Justification is the subsequent legal recognition of that fact. We are declared (past tense) righteous. We now have perfect righteousness before God (not personally, but legally).
- āBut by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemptionā (1 Cor. 1:30).
- āHe made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Himā (2 Cor. 5:21).
In his important book Godās Words: Studies of Key Bible Themes, J.I. Packer discusses the meaning of justification and contrasts it with the Catholic and Mormon view:
- To ājustifyā in the Bible means to ādeclare righteousā: to declare, that is, of a man on trial, that he is not liable to any penalty, but is entitled to all the privileges due to those who have kept the lawā¦.The Church of Rome has always maintained that Godās act of justifying is primarily, if not wholly, one of making righteous, by inner spiritual renewal, but there is no biblical or linguistic ground for this view, though it goes back at least as far as Augustine. Paulās synonyms for ājustifyā are āreckon (impute) righteousness,ā āforgive (more correctly, remit) sins,ā ānot reckon sinā (see Rom. 4:5-8)āall phrases which express the idea, not of inner transformation, but of conferring a legal status and canceling a legal liability. Justification is a judgment passed on man, not a work wrought within man; Godās gift of a status and a relationship to himself, not of a new heart. Certainly, God does regenerate those whom he justifies, but the two things are not the same.[3]
Thus, as Bakerās Dictionary of Theology points out, every believer in Christ is now treated by God as if they are righteous (on the basis of their imputed righteousness), not as if they are sinners:
- āThe righteousness of Godā [i.e., righteousness from God: see Phil. 3:9] is bestowed on them as a free gift (Rom. 1:17, 3:21 ff.; 5:17, cf. 9:30; 10:3-10): that is to say, they receive the right to be treated and the promise that they shall be treated, no longer as sinners, but as righteous, by the divine Judge. Thus they become āthe righteousness of Godā in and through Him who āknew no sinā personally but was representatively āmade sinā (treated as a sinner, and punished) in their stead (1 Cor. 5:21). This is the thought expressed in classical Protestant theology by the phrase āthe imputation of Christās righteousness,ā namely, that believers are righteous (Rom. 5:19) and have righteousness (Phil. 3:9) before God for no other reason than that Christ their Head was righteous before God, and they are one with Him, sharers of His status and acceptance. God justifies them by passing on them, for Christās sake, the verdict which Christās obedience merited. God declares them to be righteous, because He reckons them to be righteous; and He reckons righteousness to them, not because He accounts them to have kept His law personally (which would be a false judgment), but because He accounts them to be united to the one who kept it representatively (and that is a true judgment). For Paul, union with Christ is not fantasy, but factāthe basic fact indeed in Christianity; and the doctrine of imputed righteousness is simply Paulās exposition of the forensic aspect of it (see Rom. 5:12 ff.).[4]
4. Justification is accomplished in harmony with Godās justice. It displays His holiness; it does not deny it. The only way for the sinnerās justification to be truly just in Godās eyes is for two requirements to be absolutely satisfied. The first is that every requireĀment of the law must be satisfied. The second is that the infinitely holy character of God must be satisfied. J.I. Packer again comments:
- The only way in which justification can be just is for the law to be satisfied so far as the justified are concerned. But the law makes a double demand on sinners: it requires both their full obedience to its precepts, as Godās creatures, and their full endurance of its penalty, as transgressors. How could they conceivably meet this double demand? The answer is that it has been met already by the Lord Jesus Christ, acting in their name. The eternal Son of God was āborn under the lawā (Gal. 4:4) in order that he might yield double submission to the law in his peopleās stead. Both aspects of his submission are indicated in Paulās words: āheā¦became obedientāunto deathā (Phil. 2:8). His life of righteousness culminated in his dying the death of unrighteous according to the will of God: he bore the penal curse of the law in manās place (Gal. 3:13) to make propitiation for manās sins (Rom. 3:25). And thus, āthrough one act of righteousnessāāthe life and death of the sinless Christāāthere resulted justification of life to all menā (Rom. 5:18 NASB).ā[5]
He concludes:
- Paulās thesis is that God justifies sinners on a just ground, namely, that the claims of Godās law upon them have been fully satisfied. The law has not been altered, or suspended, or flouted for their justification, but fulfilled by Jesus Christ, acting in their name. By perfectly serving God, Christ perfectly kept the law (cf. Matt. 3:15). His obedience culminated in death (Phil. 2:8); He bore the penalty of the law in menās place (Gal. 3:13), to make propitiation for their sins (Rom. 3:25). On the grounds of Christās obedience, God does not impute sin, but imputes righteousness, to sinners who believe (Rom. 4:2-8; 5:19).[6]
This is exactly what Scripture teachesāthat God can be both just and the justifier of those who place their faith in Jesus:
- For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:23-26).
Notes
- ā John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Protestants and Catholics: Do They Now Agree?, (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1995), 55-56
- ā Bruce Milne, Know the Truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief (Downerās Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1982), 155.
- ā J. I. Packer, Godās Words, 141-42.
- ā J. I. Packer in Bakerās Dictionary of Theology, 306.
- ā J. I. Packer, Godās Words, 141-42.
- ā J. I. Packer in Bakerās Dictionary of Theology, 306.